What concessions does Turkey expect Armenia to make? (video)
The statement of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu published in the British newspaper The Guardian in which the Turkish top diplomat calls for the resumption of Armenian-Turkish talks aims to weaken the impact of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, says Armen Rustamyan, a senior representative of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation –Dashnaktsutyun. “The recognition of the Armenian Genocide is on the agenda of the international community, and Turkey is well aware of the fact. They [Turks] are simply using diplomatic tricks to slow down the process,” he said. Mr Rustamyan says Turkey will never bypass the Karabakh issue in Armenian-Turkish talks. Never in the history have Turkey and Azerbaijani betrayed each other and as long as Armenians, as Turkey says, keep the Armenian-Azerbaijani border closed, they will not open the Armenian-Turkish border. “Turkey expects Armenia to be the first to concede. By saying concessions they mean the requirements put forward by Azerbaijan,” said Mr Rustamyan. If Turks want to be considered a civilized nation and not become an accomplice of their predecessors, they should ratify the Armenia-Turkish Protocols without preconditions. In his turn, Artak Zakaryan, Chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, said, “Armenia will not be the first to ratify the protocols.” He says Turkey’s verbal assurances, interviews and articles on the importance of Armenia-Turkey relations have nothing to do with real politics as long as Turkey has not ratified the documents. Turkey simply shows the international community that it is trying to resume dialogue with Armenia. “Yerevan will never yield to Turkey’s manoeuvres and will never link the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations to the Genocide issue,” he said adding that Armenia has already done everything, now it is time for Turkey to act and ratify the protocols.
