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Jul
23
President Serzh Sargsyan has downplayed the “sensational nature” of recent Turkish media reports about “secret negotiations” between diplomatic channels of Armenia and Turkey, saying that despite the absence of diplomatic ties contacts between the two neighboring states “have never stopped.”
“Our officials have always been in contact. I see no sensation in the fact that diplomats of our two countries had negotiations in Geneva,” Sargsyan said during a press conference in Yerevan on Monday.
Last week two leading Turkish dailies, Hurriyet and the Turkish Daily News, reported about secret talks between the two countries’ representatives. The Turkish Daily News also provided details according to which two rounds of talks between representatives of the Armenian and Turkish foreign ministries have already been completed. The first one, according to the paper, took place in an unspecified place in May and the latest one was in Switzerland on July 8. According to this report, the Turkish party at both rounds of negotiations was represented by deputy foreign ministers Ertugrul Apakan and Unal Cevikoz (the latter is Turkey’s ex-ambassador to Azerbaijan).
At a press conference attended by some 40 media representatives Sargsyan reiterated his vision of normalizing the hitherto strained relations between Armenia and Turkey, emphasizing that “healthy reason” could promote this rapprochement.
“Normalized relations suit both sides, and it is impossible to go against reason all the time,” Sargsyan said in reply to speculations by Turkish media that improved relations and an open border would be to the benefit of the Armenian side only.
President Sargsyan also said it did not matter how long he had to wait for his Turkish counterpart to respond to his recent invitation to visit Yerevan to watch a football match between the two countries’ national teams in September.
“What is important is that tendencies towards a healthy discussion of problems are emerging in our societies in regards to the issue of normalizing our relations. I am certain that Abdullah Gul’s visit to Armenia can turn it into a stable movement,” said Sargsyan, adding that the presence of people in Armenia who take another stand on Armenian-Turkish relations should not become a reason for doing nothing.
Over the past several weeks Sargsyan made a few statements regarding prospects of Armenia’s relations with its western neighbor that drew criticism from hardliners and elicited a mixed reaction of the public at large.
In his latest op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on July 9 entitled “We Are Ready to Talk to Turkey”, Sargsyan wrote that “the time has come for a fresh effort to break the deadlock”.
Earlier, while on an official visit to Moscow, he in principle agreed to the Turkish proposal on setting up a panel of historians to review the historical facts regarding the 1915 genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire which Turkey refuses to recognize as such.
That statement raised speculation that by setting up such a commission Yerevan would indirectly question the veracity of the fact of genocide — something that later was fiercely denied by the Sargsyan administration as a wrong interpretation of the president’s words.
And late last week, Armenia’s top legislator voiced readiness for establishing relations between Armenian and Turkish parliamentarians.
Tigran Torosyan said at a press conference on Friday: “Our parliament has never had any problem in terms of establishing relations with Turkish parliamentarians. We are ready for any discussion, and I am sure that we will always be able to defend the positions that Armenia adopts in its relations with Turkey.”
By Sara Khojoyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Source: http://www.armenianow.com
