Armenia Should Not Have Accepted Erdogan's Invitation: Stepan Safaryan

"I think Armenia should not have accepted Erdogan's invitation to meet. Armenia should have accepted at least US's proposal over a tripartite meeting, as Turkey alone has nothing to tell Armenia after the statement it made publicly," Heritage Party deputy Stepan Safaryan told Tert.am.

According to Safaryan it was Turkey, not Armenia, that needed the Erdogan-Sargsyan meeting in Washington, as in that way Ankara will make sure that US President Barack Obama will not use the term "genocide" in his April 24 commemoration address this year either - something Obama failed to do in 2009. With the same token, the Washington meeting is necessary also for US, which leaves no room for Safaryan to have positive expectations.

In his words what Armenia expects from Turkey is that it withdraws from its policy of linking the Karabakh issue to the Armenia-Turkey normalization and, most importantly, to make it publicly rather than in a private meeting in Washington.

"It is not in Washington that Turkey should provide answers to these questions. It was in Ankara that the Protocols should have been ratified and it was in Ankara that Turkey should have withdrawn from policy of linking the Karabakh issue," said Safaryan.