Armenia and Turkey Miss Chance to Establish Relations Each Day

PanARMENIAN.Net - Each day Armenia and Turkey miss a chance to establish bilateral relations, Armenian FM Vartan Oskanian stated in an interview with the New Anatolian. In his words, Turkey unfortunately does not want to establish diplomatic relations equally with all three Caucasus nations and play a more constructive role. "So that opportunity was missed. The second opportunity has come out as closer cooperation with the European Union. At the same time that Turkey is negotiating its EU accession, today Turkey has the opportunity to play a role as a bridge between the Caucasus and Europe. That opportunity is also is being missed, but the biggest opportunity that we're missing is the interaction between our two peoples. Fifteen years have passed (since Armenia declared its independence in 1991), and no interaction is seen on the border. Our peoples do not know each other well and old memories are being reinforced, our focus today is the wrong focus. We have got to focus on new relations, open borders, establishing diplomatic relations and that is what I mean by saying missed opportunities," Oskanian remarked.



Commenting on the Turkish Government's intention to bring an action and the International Court on the issue of the Armenian Genocide, the Armenian FM said, "For us, there is no court case, we will never talk about this, because we grew up with the real evidence, our parents and our grandparents. That living evidence of this tragedy, survival of Genocide, I am the son of one them. So for Armenians there has never been an issue where we ourselves have to prove this by going to court, that this Genocide happened. The question for us is to get a political solution. Because the issue is neither historical nor legal, it is political. And Turkey has politicized this by pursuing a policy of denial at the state level."