Kocharian: Building Contemporary Europe to Be Very Hard Without Repentance Ability

PanARMENIAN.Net - «Cooperation with the EU within the European Neighborhood Policy is most actual to Armenia at the moment. Let next generations of politicians decide where Armenia should be in the future,» stated Armenian President Robert Kocharian in an interview to Euronews French TV Company. Speaking of relations with Russia, the President remarked, «Russia is the strongest superpower in the region both in economic and military respects.» However relations with Russia do not hamper cooperation with other countries and organizations, specifically, the EU, US and Iran.



As of the NK conflict, Kocharian said that during the collapse of the USSR the Karabakh people «exercised their right to self-determination and did it in a legal and democratic way.» «I consider that now we should rather think of providing the Karabakh people an opportunity of integration into the international community,» Kocharian underscored. When commenting on the opening of the talks on Turkey's accession to the EU, the Armenian President considered positive the fact that serious reform is considered necessary for Turkey. «However, there is a negative aspect as well: the EU opens talks with a country that is closed for its neighbor and refuses to recognize its history dark pages.» «Building contemporary Europe will be hard without repentance ability. We can only regret that the EP resolution is not compulsory for the EC,» Kocharian added. It should be reminded that the EP had adopted a resolution providing for Ankara recognition of the Armenian Genocide as a precondition for Turkey's accession to the EU.