Turkish leaders confirmed their political elites adhere to the 1915 mentality – Armenian MP

Turkish leaders' behavior demonstrates that their political elites have the same mentality as their predecessors in 1915, member of the Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Naira Zohrabyan has said, commenting on the statements by Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

At the most recent PACE session in Strasburg, the Armenian delegate asked the Turkish foreign minister whether his country, which under the Azerbaijani pressure had driven the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement process to a deadlock, might be forced by some third parties into a step that would be in conflict with the PACE values.

"Davitoglu's answer was too general and bore no direct relationship to my question. He avoided speaking on the Azerbaijani pressure, but his answer actually came to confirm the idea behind my question. Speaking of the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, Davutoglu directly confirmed that he linked Armenia-Turkey rapprochement with the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and the Nagorno Karabakh issue," Zohrabyan told a news conference on Tuesday.

As for the Turkish president, Zohrabyan had asked him whether his country was going to acknowledge the fact of the Armenian Genocide and relieve the burden of history. Zohrabyan said, Gul had denied such possibility, saying that the concept of genocide was unacceptable to him. Instead, she said, Gul had proposed that a special committee be set up and added that any conclusion by such body would be acceptable to Turkey.

"Gul too, indicated direct links between the Armenian-Turkish and Armenian-Azerbaijani relations," she said, adding that such developments might force Armenia to withdraw its signatures from the protocols.