En route to Armenia to attend the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation meeting, Turkish FM Ahmet Davutoglu spoke with the reporters on board the plane.  

During the talk, he stated that they have never encouraged the “deportation” of the Armenians in 1915.

Turning to the issue of the Armenian Genocide, Davutoglu said he does not consider it right that the Ittihadists [i.e., the Young Turks] had “deported” the Armenians at the time, and he stated that this was an inhumane treatment, reports Hürriyet daily of Turkey.   

Davutoglu also stressed that there is a group of people in Turkey who argue that the Armenians deserved what befell them because they had betrayed their homeland.

“This is a collective consciousness that must be broken,” the Turkish FM added.    

Reflecting on the matter of reopening the border with Armenia, Davutoglu again underscored the need to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He maintained that even if the border were to be reopened, it will be immediately closed if the “Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict” resumed, and therefore, as per the Turkish FM, first this problem must be solved.