Artificial conditions are not right
"Turkish-Armenian relations and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement are not interrelated and it is not right to try to artificially connect the two. Yes, Russia supports the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations, but simulated conditions are inadmissible," said today Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The Armenian and Russian Foreign Ministers excluded the use of force for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. RA Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan said that there is no alternative to a peaceful settlement of the conflict and the meetings of the presidents of both countries go to show that the process is rather effective.
As far as the connection between Lavrov's visit to Armenia and Erdogan's visit to Moscow is concerned, the Russian Foreign Minister informed that his visit to Armenia was planned one and a half months ago, while Erdogan expressed the wish to visit Moscow a couple of days ago.
Touching upon the ratification of the Turkey-Armenia Protocols, Nalbandyan remarked that the Armenian side is meeting the obligations and the only problem is that the Armenian legislation on ratification is more complicated than the Turkish legislation. As far as Turkey's delay of ratification is concerned, Nalbandyan said that he wouldn't like to believe that the Turkish side is intentionally postponing the ratification.
Can Russia's energetic interests with Turkey be higher than the right to self-determination of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh? In response to the journalist's question, Lavrov said: "No, it can't."
The Ministers praised the results of the visit and underlined that this was the Russian Foreign Minister's first working visit of this year.
It was stressed that the foreign policy issues and actions within international organizations are agreed upon due to the fact that Armenia and Russia are members of the OTSC and the CIS. The sides praised the military-technical partnership as well. Lavrov informed that a monument in memory of the 156 Russian soldiers who died in the Russian-Turkish war will be installed in Gyumri and will be dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the victory of the USSR in the Patriotic War.
