Armenia showed it is not afraid of Turkey

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 21, ARMENPRESS: National issues are of great significance for Armenia, director of Oriental Studies Institute, Turkologist Ruben Safrastyan said at the round-table discussion on "Contemporary Armenian-Turkish Relations and Perspectives for Coming Five Years". He said the goals of the protocols remained undone, but Armenia showed its readiness to normalize relations with Turkey. "Turkey uses factors not connected with the regulation of inter-state ties. Turkey must step back from its policy it carries out for already twenty years: it must not exert pressure on Armenia," Safrastyan said.

In his opinion, Armenian diplomacy is on higher level and in respect of Armenian-Turkish relations Armenians are ready for inter-state relations without pre-conditions. Turkey must behave in the same way. "We may register that nothing harmed us during the process in connection with the Genocide issue. We showed that we are firm and we are not afraid of Turkey. We are not speaking of good-neighborly relations as there are deep issues between the two countries and peoples. We are speaking of normal relations," the Turkologist said.