It would be insulting for the Armenian people to make unilateral concessions to establish relations with Turkey, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has said.
“We don’t really understand the demand of the Turkish side to do anything to take any steps towards normalization of relations,” President Sargsyan said, addressing the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)
President Sargsyan reminded that after coming to power in 2008, he initiated the publicizing of the Armenian-Turkish talks.
“There were a set of meetings between me and the Turkish President, the negotiations continued intensively and in Switzerland Consequently, we signed two documents on the establishment of relations. Before the launch of the negotiations those documents clearly stated and still do state that those relations should be established without nay preconditions,” president Sargsyan said.
“Unfortunately, after the signing the protocols, the Turkish side has constantly tried and to date is actually trying to come up with preconditions. We have not come across such example sin international practice. All conditions are usually negotiated before a deal is signed. After a document is signed, basic morality requires complying with the requirements of the agreement,” he said.
“Nine years down the road we keep hearing from the Turkish side about the need to allegedly take some steps toward establishment of relations. The documents clearly states that relations should be established, after which all of the existing wrinkles between the two states should be discussed,” he said.
Serzh Sargsyan stressed that “Armenia can never accept preconditions. Turkey is truly a powerful state with an enormous potential, Armenia’s potential is not to be compared to that of Turkey. But that does not mean, however, that Turkey should speak from the position of power or in the language of preconditions.
The President reiterated that Armenia is going to void the protocols and time before spring, but added that irrespective of the fact, “it would be correct for Turkey to give up its biased support for Azerbaijan to maintain the fragile peace in the region.”
He reminded that during the hostilities unleashed by Azerbaijan in 2016 Turkey was the only state in the world to express support for the military actions.
It would be insulting for the Armenian people to make unilateral concessions to establish relations with Turkey, President Sargsyan concluded.
