Reconciliation initiative should come from Turkey – Armenian president

YEREVAN, November 8. /ARKA/. In an interview with Russian publication AIF, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian when asked whether he considers Armenian-Turkish reconciliation possible, said that “the reconciliation initiative should come from Turkey”.

“Everything in this world is possible. For example, France and Germany fought each other for several hundred years, but after the Second World War, everything changed. First of all, tolerance emerged. Tolerance towards faith, culture, communication. If this were not the case, medieval wars in Europe would have continued until today. It seems to me that the initiative in the case with Turkey should come from it. Tolerance in terms of culture, history, monuments, faith, church and everything else. Without this, without respect for each other, nothing will work,” Sarkissian said.

Although Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Armenia’s independence from former Soviet Union, there are no diplomatic relations between them. Turkey closed the border with Armenia in 1993. The uneasy relationship between the countries is caused particularly by Ankara’s support to Azerbaijan on Karabakh problem and Turkey’s overreaction to international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Empire. -0-