Expert says Armenia should use national identitiy crisis in turkey to improve Armenian-Turkish relations

YEREVAN, March 17. /ARKA/. The national identity crisis in Turkish society may be an occasion for regulating Armenian-Turkish relations, says Ruben Safrastyan, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Armenian National Academy of Sciences.

“Armenia has not used the whole potential of people’s diplomacy and direct links between the two countries’ societies,” the professor told reporters on Monday. Safrastyan believes that Armenia will benefit from expanding many-level public contacts between the two countries.

Turkey has been facing a national identity crisis over the past several years. Most of the Turkish people have been trying to understand if they are Turks or not. Public survey shows that over 40% of those living in Turkey do not think they are Turkish, Safrastyan said.

The scholar thinks that Armenia should establish direct links with the members of Turkish society at this stage making use of their eagerness “to find out the truth about the dark pages of their history that had been shut for them throughout decades and of which the government has been spreading false information”.

Armenia and Turkey have no diplomatic relations because of the preconditions advanced by Turkey demanding that Armenia should stop the process of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide committed in the Ottoman Empire in the years of World War I when about one and a half million Armenians were exterminated. Besides, Turkey has a pro-Azerbaijani position in the Karabakh conflict settlement. N.H. --0--