Spreading false information while speaking about openness is strange, to say the least, but it is, at the same time, of the Turkish authorities, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan said concerning Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s recent statement on the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement process.
The press service of Armenia’s Foreign Ministry quotes Kocharyan as saying: “As Foreign Minister Nalbandian put in his article, published in the Wall Street Journal in 2010, on the anniversary of Zurich Protocols, ‘Our position was reflected in the well-known approach to the unconditional normalization of relations. It was the bottom-line principle for starting the negotiations with Turkey. With this common understanding we launched and conducted this process and reached the agreements. Since the very start of the process, this approach has been shared by the entire international community, including the Swiss mediators, the UN secretary-general, the OSCE, EU, the United States, Russia, France and many other countries.’”
“It is at least bewildering that the Turkish delegation conducting the negotiations over the Protocols was not aware of the Turkish preconditions, which, according to Cavusoglu, was known to the whole world. Spreading such false information while speaking about openness is strange, to say the least, but it is, at the same time, of the Turkish authorities,” Kocharyan said.
As EAD reported earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister of Turkey Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference following the meeting with his counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov that Turkey had a condition for the Zurich protocols to take force: “Armenia must withdraw its troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan."
Cavusoglu said that Armenia has failed the test of sincerity and therefore, the withdrawal of protocols from the parliament makes no difference.
"Azerbaijan and Turkey want to turn the South Caucasus into a region of peace and security, but Armenia's intention is different. The South Caucasus will become such a region if Armenia understands its mistake, withdraws its armed forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and respects Azerbaijan's territorial integrity", Cavusoglu said.
In 2009, the Armenian and Turkish foreign ministers initialed protocols to normalize Armenian-Turkish relations and to reopen the Armenian-Turkish border closed by Turkey in 1993. But later, following Azerbaijan’s obstructive response, Turkey said it would ratify the protocols only when the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was settled. Recently Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan decided to withdraw the protocols from the Armenian Parliament.
On Apr 24 2015, Armenia will commemorate the 100th year of the Armenian Genocide, the fact Turkey refuses to recognize.