To achieve peace in the South Caucasus, Ankara needs to gain the trust of not only Armenia, but also the international community. This is what Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ara Aivazian said during a press conference with his Russian counterpart, commenting on Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s statement that the agreements over Nagorno-Karabakh can help improve the relations between Turkey and Armenia after thirty years of tense relations.
“I believe we Armenians agree with this vision for the South Caucasus and want peace and stability and cooperation with all of our neighbors,” Aivazian said and stressed that Ankara needs to gain the trust that it has lost during this period.
Aivazian recalled the actions that Turkey has taken in the whole period since Armenia declared its independence in 1991. He began with the Armenian Genocide and recalled that the prevailing majority of Armenians in Armenia and the Diaspora are the direct descendants of people who survived the Armenian Genocide.
According to Aivazian, since the first days of independence, the authorities of Armenia have expressed the sincere desire to establish friendly and neighborly ties with neighboring Turkey without preconditions, but in response, Turkey has continued to reject the establishment of diplomatic ties and has shown a strictly aggressive approach to Armenia.
According to him, the so-called ‘football diplomacy’ process began in 2008-09 when Armenia launched the process of normalization of relations which ended with the signing of the Protocols in Zurich, but they remained on paper.
Aivazian also said Turkey had started overtly threatening the Republic of Armenia through its president, foreign minister and defense minister when the situation escalated on the northern border of Armenia and Azerbaijan in July. “This ended with Turkey’s participation in the military aggression against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) on September 27, 2020. I have already stated that Turkey played a key role in inciting the war against Artsakh, directly threatened the Republic of Armenia and played an extremely negative role in the whole process. It also engaged terrorist militants and directly participated in the war. Turkey disrupted the process of reaching an agreement on the establishment of ceasefire three times,” he said.
