Any Precondition Put Forward by Turkey Unacceptable for Armenia – Eduard Aghajanyan

YEREVAN –Armenia’s position on Armenian-Turkish relations remains unchanged, any precondition is unacceptable for the Armenian side, Chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, said at a joint press conference with David McAlister, chairman of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday that Yerevan must take “concrete steps” to negotiate a peace accord sought by Baku and open a land corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. That, he said, is essential for normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations.

“I think that [Cavusoglu’s] statement mentioned by you was not [an expression of] preconditions,” Eduard Aghajanyan, the chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on foreign relations, told reporters.

“In essence, Turkey has always come out with this position which obviously has never been acceptable to us,” he said.

Aghajanyan complained about a “gap” between Ankara’s statements and actions. “Of course one of our objectives is to do everything so that this discrepancy doesn’t exist anymore or is at least reduced to a minimum,” he said.

Eduard Aghajanyan attached importance to the meetings of the delegation led by Mr. McAllister with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan, Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan, members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations and representatives of political forces represented in the Parliament.

During the meetings reference was made to regional issues, in particular, the developments in the context of Armenian-Azerbaijani, Armenian-Turkish relations in the post-war period, the related problems and the ways to solve them, as well as the return of Armenian prisoners of war, preservation of historical and cultural heritage and many other issues.

Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament, David McAllister, also emphasized the importance of the meetings held in Armenia, stressed the importance of the issues discussed. He also emphasized the active role of the European Parliament in the work towards the settlement of regional problems.

David McAllister reminded that the European Parliament has called on both countries to return the prisoners of war. He also noted that the European Parliament will continue to be in contact with Armenian partners in any case.