During the National Assembly session where the election for Prime Minister was held, ARF deputy Ruzanna Arakelyan asked Prime Minister candidate Nikol Pashinyan what he envisions for the future of Armenian-Turkish relations.
Pashinyan said, “I met with an experienced diplomat recently who is known all around the world. I presented him with the current situation in Armenia. I told him that 2 of our 4 borders are closed: the border with Azerbaijan due to the conflict in Artsakh, and the border with Turkey, once again, due to the conflict in Artsakh. It’s absurd when one country has good relations with another due to their mutual poor relations with another country. We have 2 borders which are seemingly open, but in reality, they are only half-open, because the Armenian-Iranian border could close at any time due to the relations between the USA and Iran and due to geopolitics. The Armenian-Georgian border can de facto close for poor weather conditions and for geopolitical issues. I asked him how Armenia is supposed to carry itself in such conditions. He helped me to accept decisions and arguments which we used during a foreign policy discussion.”
“Regarding Armenian-Turkish relations, I can say the same thing that has always been said: Armenia is prepared to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey without any preconditions. Now, please do not assume that this means we consider the question of world recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide to be less important. We do not think that the question of recognizing the Genocide is an issue dealing with Armenian-Turkish relations. It is instead an issue of international security, and it is our investment in worldwide prevention of genocide. The border is not closed because of us, but instead because of Turkey due to the Artsakh conflict, and that is poor policy because if anyone hopes that the Armenian people can be coerced or threatened to take a certain course of action in resolving the Artsakh conflict, they are mistaken.”
Hripsime Jebejyan
