Armenian MPs comment on president’s upcoming meeting with Turkish premier

Mediamax news agency
6 May 05

Yerevan, 6 May: Armenian deputies today commented on the upcoming
meeting between Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Asked by our Mediamax parliamentary correspondent, Galust Saakyan,
leader of the parliamentary faction of the Republican Party of Armenia
[RPA], said that the scheduled Kocharyan-Erdogan meeting will only lay
the foundation of dialogue and will not bring about a rapid solution
to existing problems, especially, the lifting of the blockade of the
Turkish-Armenian border.

The head of the parliamentary faction of the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation – Dashnaktsutyun [ARFD], Levon Lazarian, said that Turkey
should recognize that establishing diplomatic ties with Armenia meets
its own interests and should not link this issue exclusively with
negotiations concerning accession to the European Union.

The deputies are convinced that keeping an “iron curtain” on the
border with Armenia does not meet Turkey’s interests. “If steps
towards Armenia are taken purely for propaganda purposes, then one
should expect nothing good from this,” Lazarian added.

The secretary of the opposition Justice bloc, Viktor Dallakyan,
expressed the opinion that European countries and politicians are
exploiting the problem of the Armenian genocide and the unsolved
status of Armenian-Turkish relations as another lever of pressure on
Turkey in order to hamper its accession to the EU.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress