It is impossible to talk about any healthy dialogue between Armenia and Turkey, says expert

Speaking with Alpha News, Russian political scientist Pyotr Kolchin commented on Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan’s statement that Armenia and Turkey are having a “very healthy dialogue.”

According to the expert, the key problem of Armenian-Turkish relations remains unchanged, despite any statements.

“Despite all the statements about mutual understanding on a number of issues, the key problem of Armenian-Turkish relations remains unchanged. Turkey will never recognize the Genocide of the Armenian people, which was largely initiated by the founding fathers of the modern Turkish state. This is Ankara’s principled position, and it will remain unchanged. In this case, it is Armenia that should ‘back down’ to come to some kind of ‘mutual understanding’. However, I believe that this is a fundamental issue in the historical path of the entire Armenian people. Even talking about revising the status of this terrible event will cause social upheaval,” Kolchin said.

“I believe it is impossible to talk about any extensive and healthy dialogue between Armenia and Turkey. There may be some local agreements around logistics and trade, rather than a drastic shift in relations between Ankara and Yerevan. So, statements about dialogue and normalization of relations, first of all, have a populist context and are intended to show how effectively everything is being conducted, but in reality, I doubt that this will reach any tangible goals,” Kolchin concluded.