OFFICIAL POSITION OF TURKEY IS NOT REFUSAL OF 1915 TRAGEDY, TURK EXPERT SAYS
Noyan Tapan
Dec 12 2006
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 12, NOYAN TAPAN. Turkey is in the regime of special
relations with Azerbaijan and does not want to establish diplomatic
ties with Armenia to the detriment of those relations. Mensur Akgun,
the head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Turkish Economic
and Social Sciences Foundation (TESEV), made such a statement on
December 11, during the round table organized by the Caucasus Media
Institute. In the expert’s words, defining of relations of Armenia
with Turkey is a pre-condition within the Karabakh problem context
for establishing political relations between Turkey and Armenia and
development of communication between the two countries. Touching upon
the Armenian Genocide problem, M.Akgun mentioned that "it would be
desirable to create a commission which would satisfy demands of the
two sides. In the expert’s opinion, just this commission would find out
if the happened was a genocide or any other thing. "Turkey’s official
position is not refusal of that tragedy which may not be qualified as a
genocide, M.Akgun stated. The expert at the same time emphasized that
"acceptance of the fact of that genocide is a huge change in Turkey’s
position as Turks did not at all speak about the happened 30 years
ago." Politician Alexander Iskandarian mentioned that discussions on
establishing diplomatic relations with Turkey or opening of borders
in wide circles of the Armenian society takes place in economic but
no political field. In his words, it is wrong to consider solution of
the conflict with Azerbaijan as a pre-condition of the Armenia-Turkey
relations. "We do not say, do we, to improve your relations with
Cyprus for we establish relations with you," A.Iskandarian said,
addressing to Turk participants of the round table. In his words,
creation of the mentioned commission is meaningless as the fact of
the genocide is beyond any doubts for Armenia.