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OF ARMENIA INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND EUROPEAN AFFAIRS
Mnistry of Foreign Affairs
http://www.mfa.am/en/speeches/item/2011/07/14/speech_ireland/
www.mfa.am
July 14 2011
Armenia
Speech by H.E. Mr. Edward Nalbandian, Foreign Minister of the Republic
Mr. Chairman,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to be in the friendly Ireland and deliver a speech
at the esteemed Institute of International and European Affairs. It
is not so often that we have mutual visits to Dublin and Yerevan, but
this does not decrease the warmth and friendly feelings both Armenians
and Irish people emanate towards one another. The Irish proverb
"what is seldom is wonderful" (An rud is annamh is iontach) probably
contains much truth in it, but in promoting political dialogue and
strengthening friendship regularity of contacts and meetings is a must.
I have a particular feeling being here because with the Irish people
the Armenians share many similarities. We both have huge diasporas
spread around the world. Thus, Armenians and the Irish meet one
another on a daily basis in the USA, Canada, Argentina, Australia
and other places.
We share interesting similarities in belief systems, art, literature
and architecture, despite the fact that for a very long period of
history Ireland and Armenia represented the opposite frontiers of
the Christian world. It is a historical fact that the cousins of
the modern day Irish, the ancient Galatian Celts, were neighbors to
our Armenian forefathers some 2.000 years ago. It is also a striking
similarity of historical past that Christianity became the religion
of the Armenians and the Irish quite early in history.
Armenians were the first in the world to become a Christian state
in the beginning of the 4th century, Christianity was introduced to
Ireland in the beginning of the 5th century. Another amazing similarity
is that the Armenians and the Celts are the two only peoples around
the world which have richly decorated cross-stones and which are one
of our civilisational heritages. The similarities of the cross-stones
are simply striking. By the way, UNESCO named the Armenian cross-stone
art as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The political history of Armenia and Ireland, have had some
interesting features too. An example of them is that, one of the
prominent Armenians of the 18th century, Joseph Emin, who was also
a key figure in the Armenian liberation movement, for more than 30
years was a close friend to one of the Irish national heroes and most
eminent political thinkers, Edmund Burke and was greatly influenced
by Burke's ideas. The fact that Irish academic institutions have been
interested in Armenian history and culture can not go unnoticed.
Recently Chester Beatty Library published a book "The Armenians: Art,
Culture and Religion", which is a new assessment of the Armenian
Collection of Chester Beatty Library. This library has one of the
largest collections of Armenian medieval manuscripts in Europe.
Not only the close contacts since the earliest times and the
preservation of those ties throughout centuries, but also the
strong civilizational links between the two nations, sympathy
towards each other and sharing similar or very close approaches on
many international and regional issues have made our countries as
natural friends.
Currently the Armenian-Irish relations could have been much more
developed given the existing potential for developing political,
economic, touristic, trade, and cultural relations. And together
with my colleague, Mr. Eamon Gilmore, Minister of Foreign Affairs
and Trade of Ireland we will try to fill in this gap.
Armenia pursues multi-vector foreign policy. On the regional level it
is motivated not by attempts of capitalizing on differences between
the major powers, but by partnership and cooperation. In building
and developing such relations with our partners we believe in the
principles of reciprocity, trust, goodwill, mutual interests and
respect. These values are entrenched in our strategic relations with
Russia, in our close friendly partnership with the United States, in
our strong relationships with the European Union and in the meaningful
cooperation with other regions.
Armenia-EU relations stand high in Armenia's foreign policy agenda.
With the launch of the Eastern Partnership two years ago we have
got increased opportunities of cooperation in all spheres of mutual
interest. Armenia is strongly committed to making the most of those
opportunities as we regard them not only a useful mechanism for
the advancement of the reforms process in Armenia, but also for
good-spirited cooperation among the partner states.
With this being said I would like to refer to the good progress in
negotiations on the future Association Agreement between Armenia
and the EU, which will define our new contractual relations for the
years ahead. In terms of boosting and deepening of economic and trade
cooperation we expect the establishment of a Deep and Comprehensive
Free Trade Area to be conducive to increased economic relations with
the EU, Armenia's largest trade partner.
The issue of visa facilitation remains of high importance for us too.
As we speak of partnership between participating states and the EU we
bear in mind that the primary beneficiaries of this process are the
societies on both sides. Therefore we must provide favorable conditions
for our citizens to exercise their right to free communication,
interaction and exchanges. We have strong indications from Brussels
that decision on visa facilitation talks can be issued before the
Eastern partnership summit in Poland this September.
I would not go into the specificities in this respect and would rather
turn to the recent developments in the two foreign policy challenges
that are of concern to Armenia, as well as to the whole region and
the international community in general. They are the Nagorno-Karabakh
peace process and the Armenian-Turkish relations.
The history of the conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh is well known. As
a week ago the Washington Post coined it, Karabakh was assigned,
by Joseph Stalin, to the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. So I
would not go back to the period of 1921, when a group of Bolsheviks
with just one signature decided to pass the Armenian territories of
Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhijevan to a recently created state, which
in 1918 was named Azerbaijan. The ethnic cleansing successfully
carried out in Nakhijevan throughout the Soviet period, failed in
Nagorno-Karabakh. The desire of the Nagorno-Karabakhi Armenians to
implement their right to self determination was reacted by massacres
of Armenians in different parts of Azerbaijani. In this situation
Armenia faced two options. Either stand by and witness the total
extermination of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh
and Azerbaijan or defend their right to survival. We chose the second
option. An agreement signed in May 1994 between Nagorno-Karabakh,
Azerbaijan and joined by Armenia ended the military phase of the
conflict.
The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, represented by the USA, Russia and
France, has been the internationally mandated negotiating format for
this conflict.
Here I would like to underline that the fact that next year Ireland
will assume the chairmanship of the OSCE is of essential importance
in terms of contribution to the negotiation process within the OSCE
Minsk group format.
In the past there have been different approaches, proposals and
suggestions by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs for the resolution of the
conflict. The negotiations are currently conducted on the basis of
the Madrid proposals that were presented to the sides in November 2007.
And as history tends to repeat, ten years after the Key West, in 2011,
the current Azerbaijani leadership currently also is unable to heed
to the appeals of the international community "to take a decisive
step towards a peaceful settlement."
The essence of the Madrid proposals are the three principles of non
use or threat of force, self-determination and territorial integrity,
and 14 elements, the main six of which were presented in the statements
of Presidents of the Co-Chair countries, Barack Obama, Dmitri Medvedev
and Nikolas Sarkozy, in the frameworks of the G8 Summits in L'Aquila
in 2009 and Muskoka 2010. Less than two months ago, in late May, ahead
of the planned Kazan meeting, the Presidents of Co-Chair countries
made another statement in Deauville, referring to their earlier
statements, added that "the use of force created the current situation
of confrontation and instability. Its use again would be condemned by
the international community." The three Presidents strongly urge the
leaders of the sides to prepare their populations for peace, not war.
Anyone with the minimum knowledge of the political climate in the
South Caucasus region knows well which of the sides of the conflict
is preparing its population for war, which of the sides is repeatedly
threatening to use force, which of the sides is preaching war, which
of the sides is multiplying its military budget and bragging about
it, which of the sides is propagating hatred towards the other side,
which of the sides is blockading the other and feeding tales of
distorted history about the other.
In this regard there was no shortage of practical proposals which
could ameliorate the situation. The international community, the UN
Secretary General, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries, and different
OSCE Chairmanship, including the current Lithuanian, have made several
proposals on consolidation of cease-fire and on withdrawal of snipers
from the Line of Contact, which were all rejected by the Azerbaijani
side, while Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh responded positively. The
President of Armenia proposed to reach an agreement on non-use of
force, which was supported by international community. Azerbaijan
rejected again.
All principles and elements proposed by the leaders of the three
Co-Chair countries have been conceived as an integrated whole. Armenia
welcomed this approach. While Azerbaijan rejects all the proposed
principles but one, and all the elements, but one. Azerbaijan attempts
to misrepresent that only one principle, the territorial integrity
and only one element, return of territories, have priority over all
the others.
That is why in Almaty in July 2010 the three Co-Chairs stated that all
the principles and elements have been conceived as wholeness and no
principle or element can be separated from the others or can prevail
over the others. In Astana, the US Secretary of State, on behalf of
the other Co-Chair countries, reaffirmed this approach.
We went to the Kazan meeting, initiated by the President Medvedev and
supported by Presidents Obama and Sarkozy, with a positive mood and
feeling that we could reach an agreement on the Basic Principles of
the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. In Deauville the Co-Chair countries
had urged the Presidents to come to an agreement in Kazan. President
Obama in his phone conversations with the Presidents had made the
same appeal. The President of France Sarkozy had sent messages to the
Presidents, as well.The President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan during his
speech in PACE in Strasbourg just before Kazan stated that it would be
possible to expect positive results, progress in Kazan if Azerbaijan
did not propose new amendments as was expected by the three Co-Chairs.
Yet, the Kazan summit didn't achieve a breakthrough, because Azerbaijan
was not ready to accept the last version of the Basic Principles
proposed by the three Co-Chairs. The Azerbaijani side proposed ten
changes and amendments, and that is the reason why the Kazan meeting
did not result in a breakthrough.
As soon as Azerbaijan gets rid of its big illusions that money
stemming from oil revenues could become a major factor in the conflict
resolution in favor of its interests, as soon as Azerbaijan gets rid
of its attempts of directing oil revenues for funding a new military
adventurism then, we can hope that progress in the peace process
could be more visible. Azerbaijan would gain more by redirecting
its resources and energies to peaceful discourse and at reaching a
compromised solution.
Concerning the Armenian-Turkish normalization process, the
Armenian-Turkish relations were in a deadlock when the President
of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan initiated the normalization process with
Turkey. The Armenian initiative met a positive response by the Turkish
President and allowed us to attempt to make an investment in a durable
rapprochement.
Our position was reflected in the well-known approach of normalization
of relations without any preconditions. It was the bottom-line
principle for starting the negotiations with Turkey. With this
common understanding we started, conducted this process and came to
the agreements. From the beginning of the process up until now this
approach has been shared by the whole international community-starting
from the Swiss mediators to the Secretary-General of the U.N, the OSCE,
the EU, the U.S., Russia, France and many other countries.
Unfortunately Turkey has backtracked from the reached agreements. Not
only has it refrained from ratifying the protocols, but Ankara has
returned to the language of preconditions that it had used before
the beginning of the process. Turkey has attempted to link the
Armenian-Turkish normalization process to the settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, thus keeping its borders with Armenia
closed and refusing to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia.
Any Turkish attempts to link the normalization of its relations with
Armenia upon its own perception of progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh
talks, harms both processes. This is a position that countries involved
in Armenia-Turkey normalization and Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks,
representing the whole international community, have emphasized
several times.
Turkey also uses the normalization process as a smokescreen for
baseless argument that the adoption of resolutions on the Armenian
Genocide in various countries can damage the normalization process.
Yet, from the beginning of the process we made clear both in our
contacts with the Turkish partners as well as publicly that Armenia
will never put under question the fact of the Armenian Genocide or
the importance of its international recognition.
The negotiations between Armenia and Turkey were finalized by the
signature of the protocols and now the only remaining step in this
long lasting process is the ratification and implementation of the
Armenian-Turkish protocols without any preconditions and delays. And
the international community expects exactly that from Turkey.
When Secretary Clinton was in Armenia last year on the National Day
of the USA, during the Press Conference echoing the international
community's common stance on this issue she observed that Armenia
passed its way, and that the ball is in Turkey's court and Turkey
should take the steps that it promised to take.
I would like to summarize by a quote from the great James Joyce's novel
Ulysses, which the Armenian reader has a pleasure to read in Armenian.
Bloom says: "Force, hatred. That's not life for men and women, insult
and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that,
that is really life."
"What?" says Alf.
"Love," says Bloom. "I mean the opposite of hatred."
We, the Armenians and Irish know well what hatred can lead to and
what love can lead to.
I should stop here and give the floor to you for questions.
Thank you!
From: Baghdasarian
Mnistry of Foreign Affairs
http://www.mfa.am/en/speeches/item/2011/07/14/speech_ireland/
www.mfa.am
July 14 2011
Armenia
Speech by H.E. Mr. Edward Nalbandian, Foreign Minister of the Republic
Mr. Chairman,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to be in the friendly Ireland and deliver a speech
at the esteemed Institute of International and European Affairs. It
is not so often that we have mutual visits to Dublin and Yerevan, but
this does not decrease the warmth and friendly feelings both Armenians
and Irish people emanate towards one another. The Irish proverb
"what is seldom is wonderful" (An rud is annamh is iontach) probably
contains much truth in it, but in promoting political dialogue and
strengthening friendship regularity of contacts and meetings is a must.
I have a particular feeling being here because with the Irish people
the Armenians share many similarities. We both have huge diasporas
spread around the world. Thus, Armenians and the Irish meet one
another on a daily basis in the USA, Canada, Argentina, Australia
and other places.
We share interesting similarities in belief systems, art, literature
and architecture, despite the fact that for a very long period of
history Ireland and Armenia represented the opposite frontiers of
the Christian world. It is a historical fact that the cousins of
the modern day Irish, the ancient Galatian Celts, were neighbors to
our Armenian forefathers some 2.000 years ago. It is also a striking
similarity of historical past that Christianity became the religion
of the Armenians and the Irish quite early in history.
Armenians were the first in the world to become a Christian state
in the beginning of the 4th century, Christianity was introduced to
Ireland in the beginning of the 5th century. Another amazing similarity
is that the Armenians and the Celts are the two only peoples around
the world which have richly decorated cross-stones and which are one
of our civilisational heritages. The similarities of the cross-stones
are simply striking. By the way, UNESCO named the Armenian cross-stone
art as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The political history of Armenia and Ireland, have had some
interesting features too. An example of them is that, one of the
prominent Armenians of the 18th century, Joseph Emin, who was also
a key figure in the Armenian liberation movement, for more than 30
years was a close friend to one of the Irish national heroes and most
eminent political thinkers, Edmund Burke and was greatly influenced
by Burke's ideas. The fact that Irish academic institutions have been
interested in Armenian history and culture can not go unnoticed.
Recently Chester Beatty Library published a book "The Armenians: Art,
Culture and Religion", which is a new assessment of the Armenian
Collection of Chester Beatty Library. This library has one of the
largest collections of Armenian medieval manuscripts in Europe.
Not only the close contacts since the earliest times and the
preservation of those ties throughout centuries, but also the
strong civilizational links between the two nations, sympathy
towards each other and sharing similar or very close approaches on
many international and regional issues have made our countries as
natural friends.
Currently the Armenian-Irish relations could have been much more
developed given the existing potential for developing political,
economic, touristic, trade, and cultural relations. And together
with my colleague, Mr. Eamon Gilmore, Minister of Foreign Affairs
and Trade of Ireland we will try to fill in this gap.
Armenia pursues multi-vector foreign policy. On the regional level it
is motivated not by attempts of capitalizing on differences between
the major powers, but by partnership and cooperation. In building
and developing such relations with our partners we believe in the
principles of reciprocity, trust, goodwill, mutual interests and
respect. These values are entrenched in our strategic relations with
Russia, in our close friendly partnership with the United States, in
our strong relationships with the European Union and in the meaningful
cooperation with other regions.
Armenia-EU relations stand high in Armenia's foreign policy agenda.
With the launch of the Eastern Partnership two years ago we have
got increased opportunities of cooperation in all spheres of mutual
interest. Armenia is strongly committed to making the most of those
opportunities as we regard them not only a useful mechanism for
the advancement of the reforms process in Armenia, but also for
good-spirited cooperation among the partner states.
With this being said I would like to refer to the good progress in
negotiations on the future Association Agreement between Armenia
and the EU, which will define our new contractual relations for the
years ahead. In terms of boosting and deepening of economic and trade
cooperation we expect the establishment of a Deep and Comprehensive
Free Trade Area to be conducive to increased economic relations with
the EU, Armenia's largest trade partner.
The issue of visa facilitation remains of high importance for us too.
As we speak of partnership between participating states and the EU we
bear in mind that the primary beneficiaries of this process are the
societies on both sides. Therefore we must provide favorable conditions
for our citizens to exercise their right to free communication,
interaction and exchanges. We have strong indications from Brussels
that decision on visa facilitation talks can be issued before the
Eastern partnership summit in Poland this September.
I would not go into the specificities in this respect and would rather
turn to the recent developments in the two foreign policy challenges
that are of concern to Armenia, as well as to the whole region and
the international community in general. They are the Nagorno-Karabakh
peace process and the Armenian-Turkish relations.
The history of the conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh is well known. As
a week ago the Washington Post coined it, Karabakh was assigned,
by Joseph Stalin, to the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. So I
would not go back to the period of 1921, when a group of Bolsheviks
with just one signature decided to pass the Armenian territories of
Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhijevan to a recently created state, which
in 1918 was named Azerbaijan. The ethnic cleansing successfully
carried out in Nakhijevan throughout the Soviet period, failed in
Nagorno-Karabakh. The desire of the Nagorno-Karabakhi Armenians to
implement their right to self determination was reacted by massacres
of Armenians in different parts of Azerbaijani. In this situation
Armenia faced two options. Either stand by and witness the total
extermination of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh
and Azerbaijan or defend their right to survival. We chose the second
option. An agreement signed in May 1994 between Nagorno-Karabakh,
Azerbaijan and joined by Armenia ended the military phase of the
conflict.
The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, represented by the USA, Russia and
France, has been the internationally mandated negotiating format for
this conflict.
Here I would like to underline that the fact that next year Ireland
will assume the chairmanship of the OSCE is of essential importance
in terms of contribution to the negotiation process within the OSCE
Minsk group format.
In the past there have been different approaches, proposals and
suggestions by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs for the resolution of the
conflict. The negotiations are currently conducted on the basis of
the Madrid proposals that were presented to the sides in November 2007.
And as history tends to repeat, ten years after the Key West, in 2011,
the current Azerbaijani leadership currently also is unable to heed
to the appeals of the international community "to take a decisive
step towards a peaceful settlement."
The essence of the Madrid proposals are the three principles of non
use or threat of force, self-determination and territorial integrity,
and 14 elements, the main six of which were presented in the statements
of Presidents of the Co-Chair countries, Barack Obama, Dmitri Medvedev
and Nikolas Sarkozy, in the frameworks of the G8 Summits in L'Aquila
in 2009 and Muskoka 2010. Less than two months ago, in late May, ahead
of the planned Kazan meeting, the Presidents of Co-Chair countries
made another statement in Deauville, referring to their earlier
statements, added that "the use of force created the current situation
of confrontation and instability. Its use again would be condemned by
the international community." The three Presidents strongly urge the
leaders of the sides to prepare their populations for peace, not war.
Anyone with the minimum knowledge of the political climate in the
South Caucasus region knows well which of the sides of the conflict
is preparing its population for war, which of the sides is repeatedly
threatening to use force, which of the sides is preaching war, which
of the sides is multiplying its military budget and bragging about
it, which of the sides is propagating hatred towards the other side,
which of the sides is blockading the other and feeding tales of
distorted history about the other.
In this regard there was no shortage of practical proposals which
could ameliorate the situation. The international community, the UN
Secretary General, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries, and different
OSCE Chairmanship, including the current Lithuanian, have made several
proposals on consolidation of cease-fire and on withdrawal of snipers
from the Line of Contact, which were all rejected by the Azerbaijani
side, while Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh responded positively. The
President of Armenia proposed to reach an agreement on non-use of
force, which was supported by international community. Azerbaijan
rejected again.
All principles and elements proposed by the leaders of the three
Co-Chair countries have been conceived as an integrated whole. Armenia
welcomed this approach. While Azerbaijan rejects all the proposed
principles but one, and all the elements, but one. Azerbaijan attempts
to misrepresent that only one principle, the territorial integrity
and only one element, return of territories, have priority over all
the others.
That is why in Almaty in July 2010 the three Co-Chairs stated that all
the principles and elements have been conceived as wholeness and no
principle or element can be separated from the others or can prevail
over the others. In Astana, the US Secretary of State, on behalf of
the other Co-Chair countries, reaffirmed this approach.
We went to the Kazan meeting, initiated by the President Medvedev and
supported by Presidents Obama and Sarkozy, with a positive mood and
feeling that we could reach an agreement on the Basic Principles of
the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. In Deauville the Co-Chair countries
had urged the Presidents to come to an agreement in Kazan. President
Obama in his phone conversations with the Presidents had made the
same appeal. The President of France Sarkozy had sent messages to the
Presidents, as well.The President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan during his
speech in PACE in Strasbourg just before Kazan stated that it would be
possible to expect positive results, progress in Kazan if Azerbaijan
did not propose new amendments as was expected by the three Co-Chairs.
Yet, the Kazan summit didn't achieve a breakthrough, because Azerbaijan
was not ready to accept the last version of the Basic Principles
proposed by the three Co-Chairs. The Azerbaijani side proposed ten
changes and amendments, and that is the reason why the Kazan meeting
did not result in a breakthrough.
As soon as Azerbaijan gets rid of its big illusions that money
stemming from oil revenues could become a major factor in the conflict
resolution in favor of its interests, as soon as Azerbaijan gets rid
of its attempts of directing oil revenues for funding a new military
adventurism then, we can hope that progress in the peace process
could be more visible. Azerbaijan would gain more by redirecting
its resources and energies to peaceful discourse and at reaching a
compromised solution.
Concerning the Armenian-Turkish normalization process, the
Armenian-Turkish relations were in a deadlock when the President
of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan initiated the normalization process with
Turkey. The Armenian initiative met a positive response by the Turkish
President and allowed us to attempt to make an investment in a durable
rapprochement.
Our position was reflected in the well-known approach of normalization
of relations without any preconditions. It was the bottom-line
principle for starting the negotiations with Turkey. With this
common understanding we started, conducted this process and came to
the agreements. From the beginning of the process up until now this
approach has been shared by the whole international community-starting
from the Swiss mediators to the Secretary-General of the U.N, the OSCE,
the EU, the U.S., Russia, France and many other countries.
Unfortunately Turkey has backtracked from the reached agreements. Not
only has it refrained from ratifying the protocols, but Ankara has
returned to the language of preconditions that it had used before
the beginning of the process. Turkey has attempted to link the
Armenian-Turkish normalization process to the settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, thus keeping its borders with Armenia
closed and refusing to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia.
Any Turkish attempts to link the normalization of its relations with
Armenia upon its own perception of progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh
talks, harms both processes. This is a position that countries involved
in Armenia-Turkey normalization and Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks,
representing the whole international community, have emphasized
several times.
Turkey also uses the normalization process as a smokescreen for
baseless argument that the adoption of resolutions on the Armenian
Genocide in various countries can damage the normalization process.
Yet, from the beginning of the process we made clear both in our
contacts with the Turkish partners as well as publicly that Armenia
will never put under question the fact of the Armenian Genocide or
the importance of its international recognition.
The negotiations between Armenia and Turkey were finalized by the
signature of the protocols and now the only remaining step in this
long lasting process is the ratification and implementation of the
Armenian-Turkish protocols without any preconditions and delays. And
the international community expects exactly that from Turkey.
When Secretary Clinton was in Armenia last year on the National Day
of the USA, during the Press Conference echoing the international
community's common stance on this issue she observed that Armenia
passed its way, and that the ball is in Turkey's court and Turkey
should take the steps that it promised to take.
I would like to summarize by a quote from the great James Joyce's novel
Ulysses, which the Armenian reader has a pleasure to read in Armenian.
Bloom says: "Force, hatred. That's not life for men and women, insult
and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that,
that is really life."
"What?" says Alf.
"Love," says Bloom. "I mean the opposite of hatred."
We, the Armenians and Irish know well what hatred can lead to and
what love can lead to.
I should stop here and give the floor to you for questions.
Thank you!
From: Baghdasarian