While on a visit to London, England earlier this week Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, among other controversial statements, also claimed in a BBC interview that “Armenia ought to get rid of the mortgage of its Diaspora”. But what the Turkish leader called “mortgage”, in fact, emerged as a result of the Genocide perpetrated against Ottoman Armenians at the beginning of last century.

Statements of this sort can also be heard in Azerbaijan where, too, they mostly link Armenia’s strength to its ties with the Diaspora. In particular, those in Azerbaijan often say that but for the Diaspora support, Karabakh would not have won the war and successfully realized the post-war rehabilitation.

“Normalization with Turkey will give another benefit to Yerevan,” says Director of the European programs of the International Crisis Group (ICC) Sabina Fraiser. “[Then], at last, authorities in Armenia will be able to show to the Diaspora that they are in a position to carry out policies not depending on its [Diaspora’s] will.”

Aren’t calls for Armenia to get rid of the Diaspora influence an attempt to weaken the country? Are the demands to Turkey over the Genocide, the lawsuit of the Diaspora, or the Armenian state, or geopolitics? And how far are the current processes of Genocide recognition connected with the efforts of the Diaspora and Armenia?

Vahan Hovhannisyan, a senior lawmaker and member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaktsutyun) Executive Council of Armenia, says that but for the presence of the Armenian parliamentary delegation during the vote at the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, everything might have ended differently. According to Hovhannisyan, the victory on March 4 was achieved through combined efforts of the Armenian National Committee of America (Hay Dat) and the authorities of Armenia.

“This time around, fortunately, we can say that the efforts of the state were added to the work of the Diaspora and the Hay Dat offices. But it is yet early to say that these joint efforts have proved crucial,” added Hovhannisyan.

Indeed, Armenia does not intervene in the Genocide recognition process at the state level, even though it committed itself to doing so under the Declaration of Independence.

But the role of the Diaspora in the Genocide recognition process is also somewhat exaggerated in certain cases. While this role in the United States has been quite tangible indeed, it can hardly be said that the Genocide resolution by the parliament of Sweden (on March 11) was passed only thanks to the Armenian Diaspora.

True, the Armenian Diaspora has actively worked in this direction for years, but it is hard to contest that the Swedish parliament made a decision rather against Turkey than in favor of Armenia.

“From among Armenians only I and another woman, an interpreter, were present in the parliament of Sweden during the debate on the resolution,” said the former press secretary of the opposition People’s Party of Armenia Ruzan Khachatryan, who currently lives in Sweden.

That the process of Armenian-Turkish normalization little depends on Armenia and its Diaspora was also acknowledged by majority Republican Party MP Hovhannes Sahakyan, who commented from the National Assembly tribute. According to Sahakyan, the foreign players that speak not only about diplomatic assistance to the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, but also about “other” methods of influence have become quite active of late. In the Armenian lawmaker’s opinion, the United States is also using the Armenian Genocide issue as a measure to influence Turkey.