NATIONALISTIC MOOD ALWAYS PREVAILED IN TURKEY

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
22.07.2009 19:33 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Nationalistic mood always prevailed in Turkey. In
this context, it’s hard to discuss Armenian-Turkish rapprochement,"
Noravank Scientific Educational Center expert, turkologist Ruben
Melkonyan told a news conference in Yerevan.

"Significant part of Turkish population supports nationalistic views,
which was proved by recent elections into local government," the expert
emphasized. Ruben Melkonyan reminded that antinationalistic mood’s
predominance was the reason Ankara changed the site of return football
match between Armenian and Turkish teams from Kayseri to Bursa.

"In frontier cities of Turkey (Kars, Igdir) there are a great number
of Azeri inhabitants. In case of border opening a number of problems
could arise around the issue," the turkologist noted.

Dwelling on possibility of Armenian-Turkish rapprochement, Ruben
Melkonyan noted that Turkey will take concrete steps towards
normalization of ties with Armenia before the return match between
Armenian and Turkish football teams.