“Turkey failed to respect the principle of pacta sunt servanda,” Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Edward Nalbandian stated speaking to Dnevnik daily of Slovenia, and with respect to the prospects for the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations.

“That was the initiative of our President to start negotiations with Turkey, aimed at the normalization of relations without preconditions. Before it our relations were in a deadlock. Our President invited President Gül for a soccer match in Armenia. This initiative became known as ‘Football diplomacy.’ We conducted very intensive and tough negotiations and came to the agreements. We signed two protocols in Zurich in October 2009. But Turkey was not able to ratify and implement them. Turkey failed to respect the principle of pacta sunt servanda. And that’s why the international community - many countries of the world - said the ball is on the Turkish court.

“Turkey returned to the language of preconditions, trying to link Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement with Armenia-Turkey normalization. Many countries underlined that attempts to link the two issues could harm both processes. One of the old Turkish preconditions, reanimated after Zurich was related to the Armenian Genocide recognition. But Armenia unequivocally said and repeated: we will never question the reality of the Armenian Genocide and the importance of its international recognition and condemnation,” Nalbandian said.

And to the query, “Can Russia help you as a good friend of Turkey to again put this dialogue on a passed phase?” the Armenian FM responded:

“First of all Turkish Government has to be friend of the Turkish people to act in the interest of its people. Do you think that the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations is more in the interest of any other country than Turkey and Armenia? Of course, this is in the interest of Armenia, in the interest of Turkey, in the interest of our region.

“But, unfortunately, Turkey did not have courage and wisdom to ratify and implement agreed and signed protocols. So this is not about waiting for anybody to play a role to push forward normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey. First of all, Turkey has to reconsider what it has done wrong. Back then I had warned that with this approach of Turkey, their proclaimed policy of ‘zero problems with neighbours’ would turn into ‘zero neighbour without problems.’ Nowadays everyone is reaffirming this view.”