YEREVAN (Armenpress)-Armenia is ready to start dialogue with Turkey on improving relations if Ankara does not set preconditions to talks, Armenia’s Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said on Sunday.
Sargsyan’s statemen’s came in response to a letter he received by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Sunday Congratulating him on his recent appointment.
According to the government press office in Yerevan, Erdoagn’s letter expressed hope that Armenian-Turkish relations would develop during Sargsyan’s premiership into a force that will promote regional peace, stability, calm and prosperity.
"As neighboring countries that share the same geography, Armenia and Turkey must consider finding final solutions to their existing problems and building good neighborly relations through dialogue as their major priorities," Erdogan’s letter read.
Every year, around the month of April, Turkish Officials make statemen’s in support of normalization of relations with Armenia to mislead the international community and prevent it from interfering in the "bilateral relations," of Turkey and Armenia, Director of the Ararat Center for Strategic Research Dr. Armen Ayvazian told a press conference Last Wednesday. By presenting the facade of a Turkey that is willing to work with Armenia, official Ankara effectively eases international pressure on Turkey to normalize relations and recognize the Armenian Genocide.
Since 1993, when Turkey imposed a total blockade of Armenia, Yerevan has repeatedly relayed its readiness to establish diplomatic relations with Ankara without any preconditions. But Turkey continues to maintain preconditions to establishing bilateral relations, requiring Armenia to drop international recognition of the Armenian Genocide and accept a solution to the Karabakh Conflict that favors Azerbaijani territorial integrity.
Meanwhile, Armenia’s continued willingness to normalize relations without preconditions was reiterated in Sargsyan’s letter to Erdogan.
"I would like to reaffirm the readiness of the government of Armenia for constructive and unconditional dialogue with Turkey for the establishment of normal relations," the letter read. "I believe that we together have the historical mission of building the environment of reciprocal confidence without which it is difficult to have sincere dialogue and seek solutions to existing problems."
Erdogan’s letter assured Sargsyan that Turkey’s past "proposals" for the normalization of relations between the two countries were still on the table. But the "proposals," which Erdogan stressed would help facilitate a breakthrough in the normalization of relations are the preconditions Ankara has maintained for over a decade.
