Turkey’s "good intentions" go unappreciated in Armenia – Erdogan

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish President made a number of statements on the Armenian Genocide centenary and Ankara’s policies during his speech at the French Institute of International Relations.

According to APA, Recep Tayyip Erdogan reminded on the year 2005's offer to study the archives, expressing regret that Ankara's "good intentions" remain unappreciated.

"We have opened our archives, up to now we disclosed more than a million documents. If Armenia has such an archive – they can open. If other third country has, they also can open it. Let historians, archaeologists, lawyers, political scientists work on them. And we'll determine our further steps based on the results of their research," Erdogan said.

Then president Kocharian replied to Erdogan's offer with a letter noting that the "suggestion to address the past cannot be effective if it deflects from addressing the present and the future. In order to engage in a useful dialogue, we need to create the appropriate and conducive political environment. It is the responsibility of governments to develop bilateral relations and we do not have the right to delegate that responsibility to historians. That is why we have proposed and propose again that, without preconditions, we establish normal relations between our two countries. An intergovernmental commission can meet to discuss any and all outstanding issues between our two nations, with the aim of resolving them and coming to an understanding."

Dwelling on Ankara's policies ahead of the 100th anniversary of Genocide, the President made it clear that Turkey will continue with its policy of denial. "We will continue to make every effort to ensure that the world learn the real truth about these events. We believe that the success will be on the side of historical justice and not on ideological grounds of misinformation," he said.