There will Come a Time When Armenia will Set Precondition for Turkey: Turkologist

Armenia-Turkey relations reached a stalemate long ago, and RA President Serzh Sargsyan’s statement in Cyprus that Turkey’s policy is one built on blackmail once again confirmed this, said Turkologist and Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia Ruben Safrastyan at a press conference in Yerevan today.

“For the first time, at a high official level, the RA leader made very serious and clear statements, saying that Turkey has adopted a policy of blackmail,” he said.

Safrastyan considered Sargsyan’s statement that Armenia has “considerably more moral and legal grounds” than Turkey to set preconditions to be fully justified.

“I think, there will be complex and lengthy processes, and it’s very likely that a time will come when Armenia will place the fact of the Armenian Genocide before Turkey as a precondition,” he said.

The NAS institute director highly commended the joint declaration signed by Cyprus and Armenia during the Armenian president’s recent visit, placing importance on the fact that Cyprus is a member of the European Union.

“This treaty is evidence of a very high level of alliance, and the article that the two countries, Armenia and Cyprus, have jointly signed, that is, the right to self-determination in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue must be binding, has great significance,” he said.

According to Safrastyan, Armenian diplomacy must work in this very direction and the signing of such joint declarations must occur with other states as well.