The European Commission yesterday released the 2021 Report on Turkey according to which Turkey has failed to make progress in terms of reforms and continues to move away from democracy. This is what Vice-President of the Republican Party of Armenia Armen Ashotyan wrote on his Facebook page, adding the following:

“Yesterday Armenian presses provided coverage of the summary of the Report on Turkey in which the parts about Armenia weren’t included.

So, today, I report the following after getting acquainted with the Report:

1. Unfortunately, the Report doesn’t cover Turkey’s ongoing and mad denial of the Armenian Genocide (I call the attention of the opposition of the National Assembly to this).

2. The Report emphasizes that hate speech and hate crimes are a serious issue for national minorities, and the cases of vandalism against the spiritual monuments and cemeteries of national minorities aren’t properly investigated for the most part.

3. The discriminatory references and descriptions of national minorities in textbooks need to be revisited, and there is almost no government funding for the schools of minorities.

4. The Commission on Human Rights of the Turkish Parliament has set up a subcommittee to explore the human rights violations committed during the recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan (I call the attention of the opposition of the National Assembly to this issue).

5. The Report states that Turkey had assumed a leading role in the military efforts of Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh by providing military aid, intelligence data and weapons, as well as, according to reports, foreign militants.

Armenia could have used these and several other provisions of the Report, if Armenia had national authorities.”