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The state visit of President of France to Armenia, his call on Turkey to come into terms with its history, “Turkey cannot become member of the EU” phrase and forwarding an ultimatum upset Ankara. The paper says first Foreign Minister Davutoglu responded that President of France cannot give lessons to Turkey, especially in case when it committed genocide against Algerians. The paper says Minister on EU Affairs Bagis joined Davutoglu. No matter now much the latter condemned Sarkozy for “anti-Turkish” speeches, they found it purposeful to stress that the speeches of the French President were addressed not to Turkey but French Armenians as in the coming spring presidential elections are expected in the country. The paper says Turkish NTV referred to the visit of Sarkozy to Armenia under the title “Turks already hate me”. The paper says the reference was made according to the publications of French press according to which consultants dared to warn Nicolas Sarkozy: “Don’t do it, you will make Ankara angry” and he answered “No problem, Turks already hate me”.
Under the title Ten against 12 the daily Aravot writes about the Ireland-Armenia football match of the Euro 2012 qualifier that deprived the Armenian national team of the opportunity to come forth in the play-off. The paper says in reality our team was not beaten: moreover from the 26th minute our ten football players struggled with dignity against the whole team of Ireland and their “best player” Spanish referee Eduardo Gonzalez. The paper says the whole Europe saw that goalkeeper Roman Berezovski did not play with hand but vice versa, Irish football player did it, but the referee sent off Berezovski and it is not only our conviction. The paper concludes that the registered score (2:1) is not important, the Armenian team played in the qualifier with dignity and ended it with dignity.