Members of the Turkish media arrived in Armenia to interview Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the initiative of the Armenian side and at the expense of the state budget of Armenia. This was stated by Gor Tsarukyan, Director of the Public Relations and Information Center of the Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia, in an interview with Tert.am.

Tsarukyan informed that the reporters of ten Turkish media outlets arrived in Armenia.

“The initiative is ours, there were ten media outlets, the objective as such is to present Armenia’s approaches to establishing sustainable peace in the region, normalizing of Turkey-Armenia relations to the broader Turkish public as directly and in detail as possible,” Tsarukyan said.

To the question as to what it means that the aforesaid initiative was off the Armenian side how these Turkish media outlets petitioned, Tsarukyan said: “The initiative was by the Public Relations and Information Center. We tried to find the most influential [Turkish] media outlets, petitioned to the editorial offices [of these media outlets], and they sent corresponding journalists. Within the framework of the visit, the [aforesaid] media representatives had interviews and discussions with the prime minister, a number of other officials, as well as representatives of the expert community [of Armenia].”

Tsarukyan noted that both state and private as well as more pro-government and opposition Turkish media outlets were invited.

When asked who they petitioned to and whether everyone come or there were those who refused, Gor Tsarukyan said that everyone came.

“The representatives of the Turkish media have come here with the funds of Armenia’s state budget and will stay here for three days, they will leave tomorrow,” Tsarukyan noted.

PM Nikol Pashinyan had issued a statement Tuesday that he had given an interview to several Turkish media outlets.