By Hasmik Mkrtchyan

YEREVAN (Reuters)–A leader from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation said on Tuesday President Serzh Sarksyan lacked public backing to make concessions in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to secure ties with Turkey and demanded snap elections if he tries.

“I do not believe the Armenian authorities are capable of convincing the Armenian public that unilateral concessions on two fronts, namely Armenian-Turkey relations and the Karabakh conflict, are necessary,” Giro Manoyan, the political affairs director of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, told Reuters.

Turkey and Armenia are pursuing a road map to establish diplomatic relations, open their border and end a century of hostility stemming from the World War One mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

But Sarksyan faces resistance from opponents at home and the huge Armenian diaspora abroad, who say Turkey should first recognize the killings as genocide.

They are also worried by Turkish demands that Armenia make concessions in its festering conflict with Turkish ally Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh before Armenian-Turkish accords are ratified by parliament.

“The Turkish government will use the ratification process in the Turkish parliament as leverage to try to pressure the Armenian side to give in to Azeri-Turkish demands regarding resolution of the Karabakh conflict,” said 46-year-old Manoyan.

Sarksyan denies any link. But analysts say he is under pressure to offer something to seal the pact, which would ease Armenia’s economic woes and boost Turkey’s credentials as a modernizer in the West.

STREET PROTESTS

Manoyan’s party, which has strong support in the diaspora, quit as a minority partner in the ruling coalition in April. It holds 16 seats in the 131-seat parliament. The Heritage Party with seven seats shares its position on the thaw.

With 94 seats, Sarksyan’s remaining partners enjoy a strong majority and can force through the accords. But Armenia is no stranger to political street protests, the last coming in March last year when police and opposition protesters clashed over Sarksyan’s election.

Nagorno-Karabakh cost former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan his job in 1998 when he was forced to resign under pressure from opponents angered by concessions he offered to Azerbaijan over the mountain region.

Manoyan said the opposition would seek snap elections, in comments that underscored the strength of feeling among Sarksyan’s opponents and particularly the diaspora, which has played a key role in Armenian foreign policy since independence.

Sarksyan was met with protests by members of the diaspora during a week-long intercontinental tour to discuss the accords before they were signed this month in Zurich.

Turkey denies the Genocide and closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with close fellow Muslim ally Azerbaijan, which had invaded the newly independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

Manoyan said the ARF would use “every available political and constitutional means” to block ratification of the accords.

“If we do not succeed, the only alternative left is to go for a change of administration, to have a new president and a new national assembly which will renounce these protocols as null and void.”