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APA Director General attends discussions on Turkish TV channel on Turkey-Armenia rapprochement

14 October 2009 10:52 (UTC +04:00)

The discussions covered Azerbaijanâ€™s attitude towards the protocols paving the way for the normalization of Turkey-Armenia relations.

Vusala Mahirgizi expressed her opinion on the words of a Turkish journalist, who attended the program and supported the establishment of the relations with Armenia. According to the Turkish journalist, they miss their old Armenian friends, who were known as good craftsmen in Turkey, Armenian problem is the internal problem of Turkey like Kurdish problem, the process of normalization has begun at the cost of Armenian journalist Hrant Dinkâ€™s life.
â€œI was astonished by the words of some guests of this program. I wonder where you have found so many good will Armenians. We lived together with them for centuries, but were not as lucky as you are to meet good will Armenians to solve our problem. I heard views that the process of restoration of Turkey-Armenia relations began at the cost of Hrant Dinkâ€™s life. Several Azerbaijani journalists were killed in Nagorno Karabakh war. The hands of Serzh Sargsyan and his team, who will come to Turkey to watch the match, have been stained with the blood of these journalists. Unfortunately, for some citizens of Turkey that blood could not become the symbol of unity, joint struggle against the enemies of Turks, but Hrant Dinkâ€™s blood became the symbol of reconciliation. I assure you that this is not the will of the majority of Turkish people. Turkish people demonstrate their will in Bursa. There are 2.5 million refugees in the area of the Council of Europe. 1 million of them are Azerbaijanis internally displaced from the territories occupied by Armenians. No one can ignore this,â€ she said.
Mahirgizi reminded about the promises by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials not to open the borders until the emptiness of occupied lands of Azerbaijan and said Azerbaijan was expecting for them to keep their promises.

The Director General said Turkey would provide Armenia with oxygen by the opening of borders. â€œThere are wrong approaches that Turkey will pull Armenia out of the Russian influence and establish peace in the Caucasus. It becomes clear from the view of the Caucasus. Armenia is a Russian stronghold. It is impossible for Russia to give up Armenia. After the signing ceremony, one of the Russian newspapers said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivered a note to his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian that â€œSign the protocols and goâ€, which proved once again that Armenia is under the Russiaâ€™s control. Today it will be more effective if Russia, not Armenia, is a partner to Turkey in the negotiationsâ€.
Mahirgizi said it was not correct to think that Turkey would bring peace to the Caucasus by the opening of borders with Armenia. â€œArmenia will reduce its dependence from Georgia by the opening of borders with Turkey and will intensify its long-year territorial claims against this country. There are such claims. At the same time Russia will increase pressure on Georgia when Armenia will get other access because it will receive a guarantee for Armeniaâ€™s security via Turkey. It will turn the Caucasus into the field of battle instead of bringing peaceâ€.

The Director General expressed opinion about the possibility of opening the borders after the Armeniaâ€™s withdrawal from five occupied regions of Azerbaijan. â€œFour of those five regions are not in the territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Armenians is doing so throughout the history. They seized large territories, but returned only part of those territories when the conflict was solved. They started the conflict again several decades later. If even those five regions are returned after the opening of borders, it will be impossible to liberate another part of the Nagorno Karabakh by the diplomatic way because Sargsyan will introduce the opening of borders as his great success stressing that he dominates the process. We expect from Turkey to insist until the liberation of the last piece of occupied lands of Azerbaijanâ€.