The Armenian authorities’ actions to feed the public with false, fake, and baseless information during the process of Armenian-Turkish reconciliation should be exposed, Armenian opposition MP Gegham Manukyan told a press conference Friday.

"Information has been spreading for three days that an agreement has been reached between Turkey and Armenia regarding the repair of the Ani bridge [on the Armenian-Turkish border]. In his speech in the presence of [Armenian FM] Ararat Mirzoyan, [Turkish FM] Cavusoglu mentions the Silk Road bridge, which is generally accepted as the historical bridge of Ani.

But still in 2017, the Minister of Culture and Tourism of Turkey, Numan Kurtulmus, and the Minister of Navigation, Communications, Transport were in Kars, visited the historical [Armenian] monuments of Ani, also near the bridge, and talked about the future of the bridge.

In addition, in 2019, the Minister of Nature Protection of Turkey said that the Silk Road is very important and the [aforesaid] bridge should be repaired.

On June 23, 2019, the former Minister of Transport of Turkey makes an announcement that the Kars Railway Department of Turkey has announced a tender for the repair of the Ani bridge.

It has been announced by many other sources in Turkey that official actions have been started for the repair of the bridge.

At that time, there was no Armenian-Turkish normalization process, there was no 44-day war [of 2020] in which Turkey took an active part. The Ani bridge repair work has nothing to do with today's Armenian-Turkish dialogue," said Manukyan.

He reminded that in recent days, some projects and sketches related to the Kars bridge are being distributed on the Armenian internet, but these sketches have been published in Turkish sources since 2019.

"On June 29, 2020, there were many publications in the Armenian press that the historical bridge of Ani is being repaired. This proves once again that the process of ‘normalization’ of Armenian-Turkish relations is just a smokescreen which they serve our people, as if serious processes are taking place," the Armenian opposition lawmaker emphasized.