‘We were Gathering One Million in Armenia’: Armenian Analyst on Egypt Events

Turkey can’t have a big role in the events in Egypt, said Turkologist Hakob Chakryan, speaking to journalists in Yerevan today. Recently, Turkey attempted to adopt the role of mediator in Egypt, but it was unsuccessful, he said.

Chakryan considers Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent statements on the Egypt events as simply repeating the words of US President Barack Obama.

“Turkey was simply making an attempt to prove that it has the right to make such claims,” he said.

According to the Turkologist, it’s not always events by way of protests in Egypt that support the creation of stability in the country.

“These countries have no tradition of democracy, the level of society too is low, the public cannot make use of the rights of democracy right away, that’s why it’ll take a long time,” he said.

In his opinion, the movement in Egypt is not nationwide, they are anti-government protests, since if they were nationwide, there wouldn’t be looting and other disorderly acts and the movement would have a center and a leader.

Chakryan considers it quite likely that one million people might gather in Egypt (presumably, Chakryan meant Cairo); however, he’s convinced that in a country of 80 million people, one million is nothing big.

“We were gathering a million in Armenia,” he said, adding that the Egyptian army is adopting a neutral position in fear of the US Army freezing its funding.