MP: Armenian, Turkish parliament have speakers discussed Nemesis monument

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey’s reaction to Operation Nemesis monument erected in the Armenian capital was discussed by Armenian National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan and Turkish Parliament Speaker Mustafa Sentop, lawmaker Babken Tunyan from the ruling Civil Contract party said Wednesday, May 10, Arka.am reports.

Tunyan was in an Armenian delegation that attended a gathering of parliament speakers of the countries which are members of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) in Turkish Ankara late in April.

Operation Nemesis was the code-name for a covert operation in 1920s to assassinate the Turkish masterminds of the Armenian Genocide. After the end of World War I, the Ottoman military tribunal condemned to death the principal Young Turk leaders responsible for planning and execution of the Armenian Genocide. The perpetrators fled to European capitals and lived under assumed names.

According to Tunyan, Turkish officials said it was incomprehensible to them how such a monument could have been opened in Armenia against the backdrop of efforts to normalize relations between the two countries.

Tunyan said Simonyan replied that if there is a desire to normalize relations, such events cannot be an obstacle.

When asked if the Armenian delegation was told directly that there would be consequences if the monument was not dismantled, the MP said there were no such statements.

"No such statement was conveyed to the Armenian delegation. This issue was discussed at a bilateral meeting of parliamentary speakers and there were no more conversations or direct demands," Tunyan said.

However, in retaliation move Turkey closed its airspace for overflights by Armenian airlines. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Turkish television that banning Armenian airlines from operating flights through Turkish airspace was a response to “Armenia’s provocations”, including the recent inauguration in Yerevan of a memorial to participants in Operation Nemesis.

He threatened that Turkey would take "new measures" against Armenia if the Nemesis memorial was not dismantled.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan recently said the decision of the Yerevan authorities' to erect the monument to Nemesis was a mistake.

On May 9, Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan, commenting on the threats by the Turkish side, said that the issue of placing this memorial is an internal matter of Armenia, and no one has the right to interfere with it.

Although Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Armenia’s independence from the former Soviet Union, the countries have no diplomatic ties and Turkey shut down their common border in 1993, in a show of solidarity with Azerbaijan which was locked in a conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Turkey also refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide, committed during 1915-1923 when an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman government. The overwhelming majority of historians widely view the event as genocide.

In 2009, Ankara and Yerevan reached an agreement in Zurich to establish diplomatic relations and to open their joint border, but Turkey later said it could not ratify the deal until Armenia withdrew from Nagorno-Karabakh.

In 2020, Turkey strongly backed Azerbaijan in the six-week conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw Azerbaijan gain control of a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh.

In December 2021 the countries appointed special envoys for normalization of relations, who have had several meetings so far.