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In the current circumstances, establishing diplomatic relations and opening borders with Turkey would pose a huge threat to Armenia, former Chairman of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) and former special envoy Davit Shahnazaryan told a news conference on Tuesday.

He reminded that he has always advocated the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey and has participated in Armenian-Turkish official talks. But after the 2020 Artsakh war, he states, the situation has changed dramatically.

"The war is not over yet. The preconditions put forward by Turkey have in fact been accepted by the current Armenian authorities," Shahnazaryan said.

Turkey demands that Armenia abandon the international process of recognizing the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, recognize the Kars Treaty of 1921 and the "territorial integrity" of Azerbaijan with Nagorno-Karabakh as part of it.

Ankara also put forward a new precondition concerning the opening of the so-called "Zangezur corridor” that would connect Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan. The politician believes the Armenian authorities will try to promptly fulfill this precondition as well.

Shahnazaryan considers the delimitation and demarcation of the border with Azerbaijan as the second threat, which, in his opinion, will result in Azerbaijanis establishing customs checkpoints on the Yerevan-Goris highway near the village of Tigranashen in Ararat Province, similar to the Goris-Kapan highway.

He called the delimitation process absurd, adding there has never been a case in history when it is carried out in a situation when the countries have not share a border, but a line of contact, or even more precisely a frontline, as in the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

"The delimitation of the frontline is being carried out. If you have been paying attention, the Armenian authorities once said that aggression was launched against the sovereign territory of Armenia. Afterwards, they retracted this statement. There was a demand that the Azerbaijanis must leave the territory of Armenia. It seems that this demand has now been forgotten," the former NSS chief noted.

Shahnazaryan considers the unblocking of communications as the third major threat for Armenia.

"It seems they have already agreed around this. It’s about the routes that would link Azerbaijan with Nakhichevan. In Armenia they talk about opening all communications, while Azerbaijan is closing them, a striking example of which is the Goris-Kapan road section, which is extremely important for us.

“Irrespective of whether or not these three processes will succeed, the next Armenian government can immediately annul them on the basis of international law," David Shahnzaryan said.

He underscored that all the processes are being carried out through the threat or use of force, amounting to gross violations of international law.

The politician reiterated that the Armenian authorities are “controlled from the outside”, adding, in fact, they have oriented towards Turkey when choosing between Russia and the West.

"At the end of the year an active propaganda was carried out, it was announced that Turkey and Azerbaijan did not pose a threat to us. Today, the fact is that Azerbaijan and Turkey pose an imminent existential threat to Armenia. Meanwhile, the biggest existential threat to both Armenia and all Armenians is the current government," Shahnazaryan said.