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YEREVAN. – Armenian-Turkish relations and the opening of the border between the two countries is still discussed at the European Parliament, four years after the signing of the Armenian-Turkish protocols.
This time the European MPs had come to listen to the presentations by Turkish journalist Cengiz Aktar and Armenian political analyst Richard Giragosian, RFE/RL Armenian service reports.
Aktar noted that the Azerbaijani factor continues to play a huge role in Turkey.
“The Azerbaijanis’ position on this matter is clear: Turkey shall not normalize relations with Armenia unless Armenia gives Nagorno-Karabakh,” the Turkish journalist stated.
Selim Yenel, Turkey’s Ambassador to the European Union, told RFE/RL that Armenia needs to take concrete steps in the Karabakh issue.
To the query as to why he is confident that Armenia will stand to gain from the normalization of relations, Yenel responded: “We all gain from this. We need positive changes, and we can start from this.”
And to the question as to whether he agrees with the claims that the Azerbaijani authorities have a great impact on Armenian-Turkish relations, the Turkish diplomat responded: “We [i.e., Turkey and Azerbaijan] may be two different countries, but we are one nation. We cannot disregard Azerbaijan. We see that they were treated unfairly, and we await Armenia’s steps to correct it.”
