YEREVAN.  – Two important circumstances were not focused on following Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s address to the Armenians, and in the lead-up to the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, turkologist Andranik Ispiryan said at a press conference on Monday.

As per Ispiryan, one of these important points is that, aside from FM Ahmet Davutoglu, Erdogan received no support from the rest of his fellow ruling party members, and with respect to this address.

“This means that there is a considerable Turkish political and societal stereotype, in terms of Armenian Genocide denial, which [the stereotype] is not so easy to break,” he noted.

According to the turkologist, the second important point is that the international community interpreted Erdogan’s message in the way that Turkey wanted it to be interpreted.

“Virtually all prominent Western periodicals saluted Erdogan’s message and presented it as a text of ‘apology,’ albeit there was no apology in it at all.

“What’s funny is that there were people also in the Armenian society who naively thought that Erdogan has apologized [to the Armenians for the tragedy],” Andranik Ispiryan noted.

For the first time in Turkey’s history, and ahead of the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan had condoled with the relatives of the victims of the Genocide. His respective statement, however, did not deviate from Turkey’s official policy of Genocide denial.

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am