Erdogan removes his country from regional processes, Armenian presidential spokesman

YEREVAN, September 4. / ARKA /. By saying during a visit to Baku that Turkish-Armenian relations would not be normalized until a resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that would be beneficial for Azerbaijan Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has in fact removed his country from regional processes, Arman Saghatelyan, a spokesman for Armenian president, said in his Twitter page.

Calling Turkey and Azerbaijan “two nations from one stem” Erdogan said in Baku  that Azerbaijan’s rights should be taken into consideration when discussing a resolution to the Karabakh conflict. He reassured Aliyev that “if the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia is resolved, then the problems between Turkey and Armenia will also be solved.”

Late last month Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan invited Turkish president to take part in the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire. The invitation was handed by Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandyan who attended Erdogan’s inauguration ceremony in Ankara.

“During the reception given after the ceremony in the honor of the heads of delegations, minister Nalbandyan had a short conversation with president Erdogan and handed him over the official invitation of the president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan to attend the Remembrance Ceremony, dedicated to the victims of the Armenian Genocide that will take place in Yerevan on April 24, 2015,” the Armenian foreign ministry said in a statement.

In total, over 1.5 million Armenians were killed in Turkey during the World War I.  Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, refuses to recognize the Armenian Genocide. No diplomatic relations exist between Turkey and Armenia, and the Turkish-Armenian border has been closed since 1993.

Relations between the two countries deteriorated following the escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as Turkey openly supports Azerbaijan’s position in the dispute. In 2008, the Armenian president initiated the process of establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In 2009, the "Protocol on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between the Republic of Turkey and the Republic of Armenia" was signed by Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers in the Swiss city of Zurich.

The same year, Erdogan froze the agreement and made it clear that Ankara would not establish diplomatic relations with Yerevan and open its borders until the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict -0-