Turkish PM: freeing Azeri districts to aid Armenia rapprochement
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said
settling the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and, primarily, liberating
the seven Azerbaijani districts around the Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh
region of Azerbaijan from occupation, while granting a special
status to the strategic Kalbajar and Lachin districts, could
facilitate Turkey’s rapprochement with Armenia.
The remarks came during Erdogan’s visit to Washington being paid at US President Barack Obama’s invitation. Speaking in John Hopkins University, Erdogan said he had stated this position to President Obama during their talks, adding that, earlier, at the G7 meeting in Pittsburgh, he had mulled the issue with Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev.
The Turkish prime minister criticized the work of the OSCE team of diplomats brokering Garabagh settlement. He pointed out that two decades have passed since the conflict erupted, but the Minsk Group-mediated peace talks have been to no avail so far.
"I can see that there is political will of the leaders to settle the conflict and they are doing everything in their power to achieve results. Now it’s time for the Minsk Group to put forth its will," Erdogan said.
He reminded that relevant UN resolutions are in place and must be enforced.
Erdogan noted that the process of normalizing Turkey-Armenia relations is underway, and, from this viewpoint, it is the right time to find a solution to the long-standing Garabagh problem.
Asked about the so-called genocide of Armenians, a claim on the World War I-era mass killings in the Ottoman Empire, Erdogan said "my descendants never wanted genocide to happen and would never do that." He noted that documents are available about the 1915 resettlement of Armenians in the Turkish territory and he has seen them in person. According to Erdogan, security measures were taken upon orders from the government during the process of resettling the residents. He added: "Any statement made without researching history is baseless."
Armenians term the alleged World War I-era killings of huge numbers of their kins as genocide, a claim strenuously dismissed by Turkey.
The remarks came during Erdogan’s visit to Washington being paid at US President Barack Obama’s invitation. Speaking in John Hopkins University, Erdogan said he had stated this position to President Obama during their talks, adding that, earlier, at the G7 meeting in Pittsburgh, he had mulled the issue with Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev.
The Turkish prime minister criticized the work of the OSCE team of diplomats brokering Garabagh settlement. He pointed out that two decades have passed since the conflict erupted, but the Minsk Group-mediated peace talks have been to no avail so far.
"I can see that there is political will of the leaders to settle the conflict and they are doing everything in their power to achieve results. Now it’s time for the Minsk Group to put forth its will," Erdogan said.
He reminded that relevant UN resolutions are in place and must be enforced.
Erdogan noted that the process of normalizing Turkey-Armenia relations is underway, and, from this viewpoint, it is the right time to find a solution to the long-standing Garabagh problem.
Asked about the so-called genocide of Armenians, a claim on the World War I-era mass killings in the Ottoman Empire, Erdogan said "my descendants never wanted genocide to happen and would never do that." He noted that documents are available about the 1915 resettlement of Armenians in the Turkish territory and he has seen them in person. According to Erdogan, security measures were taken upon orders from the government during the process of resettling the residents. He added: "Any statement made without researching history is baseless."
Armenians term the alleged World War I-era killings of huge numbers of their kins as genocide, a claim strenuously dismissed by Turkey.
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