Turkish Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek has said that even though Turkey is “approaching Armenia with candidness in an effort to resolve the 1915 incidents,” Yerevan focuses on the events to hamper the normalization process between the two countries, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.
“We see that Armenia chooses to focus on intensifying its anti-Turkey events organized within the concept of the centenary of the 1915 incidents, rather than carrying the normalization process further on the path towards April 24. This is despite all the well-intentioned initiatives coming from our country,” said Çiçek during a speech titled “Turkey-U.S. Relations in the 21st Century” at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington on March 24.
He said there was “no change” in Turkey’s stance toward normalizing relations with Armenia, adding there was still hope for it to improve.
“The condolences messages and statements about these issues by our president and prime minister are important steps taken in this way,” Çiçek said, referring to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s message issued in April 2014.
Çiçek also said Turkey had opened all of its archives to researchers and wished that the Armenians would do the same.
“We want the exploitation [of the subject] to be removed and for peace to be supported by enlightening historical facts. We are ready to give support to any kind of research,” he added.
