ARMENIA SAYS TURKEY OBLIGED TO RESPECT GENOCIDE SURVIVOS
HULIQ
Sept 18 2009
SC
On September 17, during the Iftar dinner, which the PM of Turkey Recep
Tayyip Erdogan gave to Turkish media editors-in-chiefs, he said Turkey
would not open its border with Armenia without solution to Nagorno
Karabakh problem. He also said that Armenia must be freed from the
influence of the powerful diaspora. We asked the Armenian Foreign
Ministry to comment on the above, which said that the Turkish PM’s
comments are not helpful to the process and that genocide survivors
must be respected.
We asked the head of the press department Mr. Tigran Balayan to
comment on the above.
Turkish Prime-Minister stated, that till Nagorno Karabakh question
is not solved, Armenian-Turkish border will not open, and made some
insulting remarks on Armenian Diaspora. What would be your comment?
Mr. Balayan said that the Turkish side is informed, and we are
confident they realize, that we exclude the conditioning of the
normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations by the steps towards
the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Trying to link those
two processes, could ruin one and another. Number of countries,
including the Minsk Group Co-Chairs countries have expressed the
same position. They stated repeatedly that the normalization of the
Armenian-Turkish relations must be without preconditions.
With this mutual understanding we have started and conducted
negotiations and came to agreements, reflected in the initialed
protocols. If Turkish authorities have problems with the signing of
documents, they should not try to solve them by distorting the spirit,
essence and goals of the initialed documents.
The signing and implementation of agreed documents is a difficult
process. Nevertheless, Armenia is ready to respect the agreements
and go forward.
If the authorities of current Turkey are not ready today to recognize
the fact of the Genocide perpetrated in Ottoman Empire, they are at
least obliged to respect the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and
their descendants, said Balayan.