Umut Vedat, a Turkish photojournalist, talking about the ceasefire regime regularly violated by the Azerbaijanis, about the deaths as a result of the incidents that had taken place during the past two days, in particular, said during a conversation with www.aravot.am, “Besides the political side of the issue, let me first say that the news about every human being’s death is the worst thing that one can hear. And besides the fact that the conflict should be generally settled, I must state that firstly it is important to separate subjects. So, the Armenian-Azerbaijani part should be separated from the relations between Armenia and Turkey.”
In response to our question whether he didn’t think that the Armenian-Azerbaijani issue impedes the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey, regardless of how the journalists of the neighboring countries host each other in their countries, Umut Vedat stated, “Perhaps there is some link between the Armenian-Turkish and Armenian-Azerbaijani areas, but it is mainly at the political level. In reality, at the level of peoples, there is no link with Azerbaijan – this is from my perspective. For example, I have no Azerbaijani friend and there is no one in my environment who knows an Azerbaijani. In particular, in recent years I have been more involved in Armenian projects, I have more Armenian friends and I don’t know any Azerbaijani as such. An Azerbaijani is not a factor for me, I have a large circle of Armenian friends, Armenians play a more important role for me,” added he.
Eva HAKOBYAN
