EUR DAS BRYZA DRUMS UP POLITICAL PARTY SUPPORT FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 000269 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/19/2019 TAGS: PREL PBTS PGOV PHUM KDEM AJ TU AM SUBJECT: EUR DAS BRYZA DRUMS UP POLITICAL PARTY SUPPORT FOR POSSIBLE TURKEY AND/OR NK PEACE DEALS YEREVAN 00000269 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: DCM Joseph Pennington, reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: EUR DAS Matt Bryza held discussions with two opposition parties and the semi-governmental/nationalistic Dashnaks April 17, in a bid to build support -- or defuse possible opposition -- for possible negotiated settlements with Turkey or Azerbaijan. All three parties voiced strong skepticism, alternately voicing concerns about Turkish/Azerbaijani good faith, about President Sargsian's seriousness and capacity to deliver, about whether Armenia is being pushed to concede too much based on Sargsian's domestic political weakness, and the lack of public buy-in for the negotiations. Bryza urged all parties not to let domestic politicking derail what he considered a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the regional situation to Armenia's great benefit. He affirmed that the President and Secretary of State are personally engaged in achieving positive outcomes, and that rare opportunity, too, must not be missed. END SUMMARY ENGAGING POTENTIAL SPOILERS -------------- ¶2. (C) EUR DAS Matt Bryza held separate meetings April 17 with the opposition Armenian National Congress coalition and the Heritage Party, as well as with the strongly nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaksutyun). All three parties have made various public noises of doubt and hostility to Armenian negotations with Ankara over Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. Bryza's talking points to all three groups were essentially the same, as follows. He said that President Obama and Secretary Clinton are personally following the inter-linked issues of Turkish-Armenian rapprochement and NK settlement talks, that they have instructed him (Bryza) to do whatever he can to galvanize near-term progress, and that they themselves have engaged directly. Bryza said that having such direct high-level U.S. engagement had not previously been the case, and this provided a unique window of opportunity. He emphasized that the two processes -- Turkey-Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh -- are separate processes, but noted that of course they are inter-related. The U.S. goal is to achieve progress on both tracks in parallel; not in lockstep, each track would proceed independently, but progress would be mutually reinforcing. ¶3. (C) Bryza reported to his interlocutors some of the anxieties and political pressures that each side confronts. All sides struggle with lack of full trust in their counterparts -- Ankara with Yerevan, Yerevan with Ankara and Baku, Baku with Yerevan and Ankara. Bryza described the intense feelings of alarm emanating from Azerbaijan about the possibility that Turkey-Armenia relations may be de-linked from the NK issue, and that Azerbaijan had been intensely lobbying various parts of the Turkish political system to oppose the deal. He reported his own efforts to persuade Azerbaijani President Aliyev not to be alarmed, but to see the opportunity to unlock the two conflicts in parallel confidence-building -- pointing out that the Turkish-Armenian process would unfold over a period of months, leaving time and opportunity to achieve parallel progress on NK. He said Aliyev was partly convinced, but Aliyev also faces domestic pressures. He noted that the Turkish government officials have pleaded with him to do whatever he can to win some kind of concrete progress on NK, to give the GOT political cover for its Armenian rapprochement program. Bryza urged each of the parties to think of Armenia's greater national interests, and appealed to them not to sacrifice to petty domestic political agendas what could be the last best opportunity for many years to solve these pernicious regional conflicts to Armenia's vast benefit. Bryza shared his own conviction based on his meetings that Turkish and Azerbaijani leaders are sincerely commited to achieving breakthroughs, and he reported that he has shared in Ankara and Baku that President Sargsian is similarly committed to seeing the process through. All parties simply need reassurance that the other parties are not going to abandon the effort. ARMENIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS -------------- ¶3. (C) The ANC is the multi-party coalition led by former President Levon Ter-Petrossian (LTP). While in office through most of the 1990s, LTP was known for his policy of pragmatic engagement to seek negotiated solutions with Turkey and Azerbaijan. Now, however, ANC representatives have signaled privately (reftel, for example) that -- frustrated by their lack of progress on democracy and political issues, notably their jailed members -- that the ANC is preparing to exploit every possible issue to try to beat up on President YEREVAN 00000269 002.2 OF 003 Sargsian and his administration, regardless of the substantive merits. ¶4. (C) Bryza met with ANC Coordinator Levon Zurabian, Armenian National Movement (ANM) party chairman Ararat Zurabian (no relation),Republic Party chairman Aram Sargsian, and People's Party of Armenia chairman Stepan Demirchian. Levon Zurabian led off with what was clearly intended as the prepared message from ANC (that is, more probably, from LTP himself). He said that in principle the ANC strongly supports the need for Armenian-Turkish reconciliation and a peaceful Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. However, Zurabian asserted that Sargsian is not negotiating these issues in good faith. Rather, the Armenian President is exploiting these issues to induce the international community to "turn a blind eye" to Armenia's egregious violations of domestic democracy and human rights. Zurabian contended that this has been a successful tactic for President Sargsian. Zurabian argued that no Armenian president could make the kinds of deals that Sargsian is reputedly contemplating without winning public support, and this would require public dialogue and salesmanship from the President and his aides. The fact that Sargsian has done none of that is evidence, Zurabian claimed, that Sargsian is not truly serious about making such deals. Zurabian claimed that the ANC-led opposition has the support of the majority of the Armenian people, so the government must reach out to the ANC and get them on board in order for there to be any chance of a deal being accepted by society. Zurabian noted that release of the ANC "political prisoners" is the price of entry for any government-opposition discussions on the topic, and the critical indicator of government sincerity. ¶5. (C) The other ANC interlocutors each weighed in with restatements of the themes mentioned by Levon Zurabian. Aram Sargsian added a more radical opinion that all of the seeming progress on Turkey and NK is the result of scheming by Russia aimed at increasing Russian influence and control over the South Caucasus region. Sargsian further argued that President Sargsian is completely dominated by Moscow, and makes no move without permission from his Russian masters. Sargsian reiterated the message (conveyed to Polchief the previous week) that the ANC must exploit every political weapon to fight the illegitimate authorities in Armenia. He claimed that "June 1 will be just like March 1 (2008)," predicting that there will be massive protests of what will undoubtedly be a completely rigged and fraudulent mayoral election May 31. Bryza responded that the U.S. continues to pay close attention to the domestic democracy/human rights issues, and to press the GOAM on the political detainees issue, as well as the need for clean upcoming mayoral elections May 31. HERITAGE PARTY -------------- ¶6. (C) Bryza met with Armen Martirosian and Stepan Safarian, respectively the parliamentary faction leader and secretary of the Heritage Party faction. Safarian presented the Heritage view of the regional geopolitical issues. Safarian criticized the secrecy of negotiations and wild inconsistencies of public statements from political leaders in Yerevan, Ankara, and Baku about the nature of discussions. Safarian sharply criticized the perceived lack of any requirement for Turkey to own up to its "genocide" guilt as part of a negotiated rapprochement. He asserted that the Armenian public would never support such a settlement without "genocide" acknowledgement. Safarian also lamented what he saw as a "vacuum" of U.S. policy leadership on the issues. Bryza sharply rebutted this, pointing out that President Obama had met personally with the Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers in Istanbul. Safarian muttered that all the seeming ferment about peace prospects with Turkey and NK are driven by oil and gas politics, and great power tussling over the Nabucco pipeline versus Russian-backed pipeline alternatives. Bryza reaffirmed that U.S. policy in the region had not changed: we put emphasis on democracy/human rights, regional security (Turkey/NK),and energy. Safarian claimed that Turkey was just using the rapprochement process to wring concessions from Armenian on NK. Bryza informed that the Armenian-Turkish negotiations have not discussed NK settlement details at all. ¶7. (C) Armen Martirosian outlined Heritage's complaints about the upcoming Yerevan municipal election, commenting that the government is already using every trick to ensure that the ruling party candidate comes out on top. He also described Heritage's failed negotiations with the ANC to forge a combined opposition bloc. He complained that the ANC had dealt in bad faith, and even started taking public YEREVAN 00000269 003.2 OF 003 potshots at Heritage, including, Martirosian claimed, by enlisting ANC supporters in Radio Liberty to run hostile stories about Heritage. In the end, Heritage had decided that a divided opposition which took shots at each other would only aid the government parties, so Heritage had chosen to bow out of the race insteand. Martirosian said he could not predict the political consquences, as the government's plan to rig the elections unfold. He said that the only way to combat government vote-rigging would have been very high voter turnout, which he now thought unlikely without an active, unified opposition running together. ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION -------------- ¶8. (C) Bryza met with three Dashnak representatives: Vahan Hovhanissian, parliamentary faction leader; Armen Rustamian, chair of the ARF supreme council in Armenia (and chairman of parliament's foreign relations committee); and Aghvan Vardanian, a representative of the ARF's international bureau. The ARF expressed appreciation for Bryza's update on the state of play (paras 2 and 3 above). Hovhanissian commented that Turkey has long insisted on three pre-conditions to normalization with Armenia: recognition of the modern Kars Treaty border, settlement of NK, and abandonment of the "genocide" issue. He commented that if the price of an open border with Turkey is the loss of NK, "then we don't want it." The three ARF representatives reacted thoughtfully, however, to Bryza's points and promised to convey them to the full ARF party leadership (notably party leader Hrant Markarian and international bureau head Giro Manoyan) and provide more feedback at a subsequent meeting. Hovhannissian noted that the Turkish "blockade" is not only an economic harm for Armenia, but a psychological and moral damage, and this harm caused by Turkey means the two sides are not at an equal starting point. Thus, when it is time to make concessions for normalization, Turkey has more concessions it must make. Hovhanissian commented that leaders in both Armenia and Azerbaijan must understand there is no acceptable alternative to a negotiated settlement over NK. The three ARF representatives were intrigued by Bryza's descriptions of Aliyev's motivations, and by Bryza's comments that the Russia-Georgia conflict had an effect on Aliyev's thinking. Bryza noted that Aliyev was now thinking seriously about the advisability of having an alternative oil and gas transit route across Armenia, and that an NK settlement is needed to make that possibile. The Dashnaks welcomed this idea. ¶9. (U) EUR DAS Bryza cleared this cable. YOVANOVITCH