YEREVAN. – In 2014, the Armenia-Turkey official contacts, and the projects conducted between the Armenian and Turkish civil societies had manifestations that differed from the previous years.

Turkologist Vahram Ter-Matevosyan told the aforesaid to Armenian News-NEWS.am, as he recapped past year’s key developments in Armenian-Turkish relations.

As per Ter-Matevosyan, Turkey’s then Prime Minister—and incumbent President—Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s April 23 message of condolence, and in connection with the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, was a noteworthy political move in the matters related to Armenia and Armenians.

“In so doing, he set a new benchmark, among the Turkish society, with respect to the approach toward the genocide [issue].

“[Sometime thereafter,] it seemed that a new format was developing on the official level. But Turkey did not congratulate Armenia on [the] Independence Day [anniversary on September 21], which was followed by Armenia’s similar contempt,” the turkologist stated, in particular.

In his view, the Armenian and Turkish FMs’ exchanges of articles likewise were no less important.

“[And] on September 24, the President of Armenia criticized the Turkish authorities from the UN High Chair.

“[And] the last noteworthy development [of last year] was the move of appointing [journalist and writer] Etyen Mahcupyan, with Armenian roots, as the [Senior] Advisor to the Prime Minister [of Turkey], and the various discussions and speculations about it,” Vahram Ter-Matevosyan specifically concluded.