Ankara and Baku are pressuring Armenia to close Genocide issue – Andranik Hovhannisyan

There is hardly an Armenian in the world who is not in some way connected to the issue of the Genocide, international relations expert Andranik Hovhannisyan said in an interview with Alpha News.

According to him, it is unacceptable when the Armenian authorities speak about the number of victims, the causes, or the advisability of continuing the recognition process of the Genocide.

“By raising all these questions, we are already casting doubt on the Genocide itself. In 2008, when the opening of the Armenia–Azerbaijan borders was being discussed, Turkey did not even then demand that the Genocide issue be set aside. The matter was artificially brought forward by the Armenian authorities themselves,” the expert said.

Hovhannisyan stressed that Ankara and Baku are pressuring Armenia’s government to close the Genocide issue themselves.

“The danger in all this is that if today the question is raised—was there a genocide or not—then later you will not only be forced to question the fact itself, but also to calculate how many Armenians were killed. Perhaps not only Armenians, but also Turks died. In that case, they could claim that maybe there was also a genocide of Turks, or that it was simply a war in which both Armenians and Turks perished. This is a plan devised by Turkey long ago, which they are now trying to implement,” Hovhannisyan concluded.