In declaring his willingness to work toward normalization of relations with Armenia, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has urged Armenia to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity as a precondition.
Erdogan was presumably responding to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who on Friday viewed overtures by the Turkish president as “positive” and said “we [Armenia] will evaluate those signals, we will respond to the positive signals with a positive signal.”
Erdogan suggested that joint constructive steps could be taken to ensure sustainable peace and co-existence.
“There is a need for new and constructive approaches in our region. Although there are differences of opinion and expectation, it will be a responsible course of action to make a sincere effort to develop good neighborly relations on the basis of trust, including respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Erdogan told reporters on Sunday, according to Hurriyet Daily News.
“There is a need for new and constructive approaches in our region. Although there are differences of opinion and expectation, it will be a responsible course of action to make a sincere effort to develop good neighborly relations on the basis of trust, including respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” added Erdogan.
He noted that joint constructive steps could be taken to “ensure sustainable peace and co-existence. “
The proposal for a five- or six-country platform, including Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, Iran, Armenia, and possibly Georgia, is still on the table, Erdogan said, adding that such a platform could bring relief and possibly solve problems in the region.
The Armenian government had not officially reacted to Erdogan’s remarks on Monday, but a lawmaker from Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party, Maria Karapetian, described it as a “positive message for discussing regional peace.”
“This is just an indirect exchange of public messages,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. Karapetian, who is a member of the parliament committee on foreign relations, said Erdogan’s remarks contained no preconditions unacceptable to the Armenian side.
Opposition lawmakers said Erdogan was continuing to set unacceptable and unrealistic preconditions in order to force Armenia to open its border with Turkey and normalize relations, arguing that Ankara wants Yerevan to agree to Azerbaijan’s control of all of Artsakh.
“Throughout his tenure Erdogan has periodically made such statements and has been rebuffed by the Armenian authorities and told to talk to Armenia, open the border and normalize relations without preconditions. Now Erdogan is coming up with a huge package of preconditions,” Gegham Manukyan of the opposition Armenia Alliance told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday
“The current authorities must categorically reject all those preconditions. But judging from their actions and constant readiness to make concessions, I have no such hope,” added Manukyan, who is also member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.
You have to be an imbecile to believe a single “positive” word expressed by this Turkish terrorist Anytime a terrorist Turkish leader, even remotely, gives the illusion of reconciliation, rest-assured he is talking about one-sided and unconditional Armenian concessions.
Ask yourselves, why would this Turkish terrorist want the Armenians to recognize the territorial integrity of genocidal Turkey, illegally established on occupied historic Armenian homeland in Asia Minor, and criminal Azerbaijan invented artificially on occupied Armenian and Persian territories?
Well, it is crystal clear to me why this devilish Turkish terrorist wants official recognition of these two genocidal and criminal artificial states’ so-called territorial integrity. Because by doing so he he wants to accomplish what they have unsuccessfully been wanting to accomplish for a century already and they are the following:
1. Make Armenia accept the illegal TREATY of MOSCOW which demands Armenia to abandon any territorial claims from terrorist Turkey which will effectively put an end to Western Armenia as Armenian. Followed by demands to give up on the pursuit and eventual recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the world community which will hold terrorist Turkey responsible for the premeditated murder of 1,500,000 Armenians, made to compensate in hundreds of billions of dollars for the murders they committed, AND return of occupied Armenian territories confiscated as a result of this brutal and racist genocidal act.
2. Make Armenia accept criminal chicken-hawk Aliyev’s trickery which will put an end to the free aspirations of Artsakh Armenians, making Artsakh Azerbaijani territory, turning Artsakh Armenians into hostages to terrorist Azerbaijan, putting their fate in the hands of filthy racist subhuman Aliyev with genocidal plans, AND the criminalization and dissolution of of Armenian Defense Forces in Artsakh.
This is what “peaceful” co-existence with the Armenians means to terrorist and genocide denier Er-dog-an. Instead of preaching his trickery to us this Turkish filth should be arrested and prosecuted for the war he and his criminal henchmen imposed on the Armenians last September on behalf of criminal artificial Azerbaijan!
I agree 100% with you.
I, HAGOP, AGREE TOO!!!!!!! ONLY STUPID ARMENIANS BELIEVE TURKS AND AZERBEYJAN!!!!!!!!!
Ararat! You are surely worthy of the name you carry! This is the attitude we all must adopt in order to achieve our objectives! Կեցցէ՛ս։