The Turkish government is ready to consider Armenia's proposal on the normalization of bilateral relations if Yerevan abandons its "hostile" position toward Ankara, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said Friday.
"If Armenia abandons its long-standing hostile attitude toward Turkey, its borders and territorial integrity, and wants to open a new page, we will consider it and give an appropriate response, taking into account the interests of our country. We don't want to be in a fight with anyone, especially with the neighbours," Yıldırım told reporters.
On Wednesday, Armenia’s newly-elected Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that Yerevan was ready to establish diplomatic relations with Ankara without preconditions.
"Turkey is putting forward preconditions. This demand is illogical because it is illogical to put forward conditions related to a third country in order to establish relations with any country. We do not change our position and we are ready to establish relations without conditions. At the same time, we remain committed to international recognition of the Armenian genocide," Pashinyan said.
The complicated relations between the two countries are caused by a number of circumstances related, in particular, to Ankara's support of the Azerbaijani position in the Karabakh conflict as well as to Turkey's reaction to the process of international recognition of tragic events of 1915 as the "Armenian genocide" by the Ottoman Empire.
