Worse than genocide?
"Of course we want to improve relations. After all, we are neighboring countries," Turkish parliamentarian Birgen Kelesh told "A1+". However, according to Kelesh, that will not happen as long as Armenia keeps conditions.
Armenia has officially declared that it is in favor of establishing relations without preconditions, yet the Turkish Deputy tends to differ.
Armenia continues to insist on, according to Kelesh, the "so-called" genocide. Kelesh believes that the events that took place in the beginning of the past century were not a planned genocide, but the result of the war between Russia and Turkey. She brings up the thesis circulating in Turkey that Armenians were deported from their residencies because "they were pro-Russian and there was a war in progress."
The Turkish representative in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe complains that the Turks don't teach this to their students because they don't want to have bad relations with their neighbors, but the Armenians and Greeks have been constantly talking about it for the past 50-60 years and that position displeases Turkey.
Kelesh is convinced that the Armenian Diaspora is pushing official Yerevan to demand genocide recognition, yet she forgets how the Armenian Diaspora came into being.
The Turkish Deputy considers Turkey's demand to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in favor of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan's complaints regarding the possible establishment of relations between Armenia and Turkey normal.
"Azerbaijan was very disappointed in that because it considers Turkey as its close ally. We are two states, but one nation," said Birgen Kelesh.
According to Kelesh, Europe is pressuring the Turkish government to improve Turkish-Armenian relations.
Karine Asatryan
Strasbourg
