From an underdog that trembled at the sight of virtually any opponent and often played anything but soccer, Armenia has transformed itself into a legitimate dog in the fight for UEFA respectability.

The “Ter” in his name is an Armenian construct to indicate that Levon Ter-Petrosyan comes from a family of priests. So who should dare split theological hairs with the Armenian National Congress leader?

Let me take a shot, so as to not totally waste four years of university religious study and two years of seminary, in reply to Ter-Petrosyan’s claim that the reason he is snubbing Raffi Hovannisian is based on Christian conviction . . .

The day was seized by Levon Ter-Petrosyan, but it belonged to Raffi Hovannisian.

When Ter-Petrosyan entered Liberty Square yesterday, he walked through a door cracked open because Hovannisian had the audacity to sit night and day on a park bench there.

President Serzh Sargsyan has made laudable proclamations over the past few days, including issuing orders that, if earnestly implemented, would advance the possibility of fair elections over the next two years – something Armenia has not seen since its first poll 20 years ago.

Monday, the president reminded high-ranking police officials that the republic’s law enforcement is obliged to not wield power out of a sense of political loyalty to the ruling regime.

An address to his nation by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan Thursday night should also be seen as a message to US President Barack Obama that says: “We honored our word. Now honor yours.”

By publicly stating what has long been known – that the protocol process is a failure – Sargsyan expressed sentiments that should be welcomed throughout the worldwide Armenian community, regardless of political persuasion, and in spite of the ugly history that afforded Sargsyan the national stage.

While Turkey attempts to gag the U.S. Congress from passing the “Armenian Genocide Resolution”, the republic might do better to muzzle its prime minister, who is making a remarkable case for why Turkey ought to be held accountable for its blood-soaked past.

This week Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatened to deport some 100,000 Armenians from Turkey, who he says are living there illegally. The threat was leveled after Sweden passed a resolution recognizing the Genocide, less than three weeks after the US Congress House Foreign Affairs Committee narrowly (23-22) approved HR252, a similar resolution that now faces the unlikely chance of making it to a vote of the full assembly.

In the predictable fallout over the House Foreign Affairs Committee passage of HR252, the “Armenian Genocide Resolution”, last week, contrary rhetoric has retorted itself into an irritant popularly expressed but shallow in concept.

Yerevan, Armenia ain’t Washington, D.C., any more than this newsroom is a Congressional Committee hall.

But in the world we live in here, most accept what nobody, there, is saying. This:

“Normalization” talks between Armenia and Turkey, failed quite a while before a late-afternoon vote in D.C. had congresspersons talking about that possibility.

Not since last October, when State Department led “protocols” offered promises that soon became impossible to fulfill, has there been reasonable belief that Armenia and Turkey were skipping hand in hand on a yellow brick road to lollipops and Technicolor dreams.

The United States government is again being asked to endorse a phrase that might heal an ally: “Armenian Genocide”.

It isn’t likely to happen. Surely not while Armenia and Turkey are at least making overtures of neighborliness.

The passions over Eurovision, an annual song contest held by public broadcasters in Europe, were flying high throughout last week as the discussion of the controversial outcome of a national selection stage appeared to eclipse even the debate on such vital issues for the country as the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement.