The Minister of Foreign Affairs for Armenia, Ara Aivazian, has said that his country is well aware of the possibilities and prospects that peace and reconciliation could provide, but for real peace to emerge, it expects Turkey to make serious changes to its policy of aggression against Armenia.
According to Armenpress, when asked about by opposition MP Arman Abovyan about the prospects of opening up relations with Turkey in a parliamentary briefing at the foreign relations committee, the foreign minister responded that until recently, Armenia was doing a lot to this end. Aivasian stressed that the most recent efforts to attempt to normalise relations – the Zurich Protocols of 2009 – had been annulled by Turkey. He raised the importance of the issue of reciprocity and concerns about Turkey spreading "Armenophobia":
“And our initiative on the normalisation of truly honest relations without preconditions was not reciprocated by Ankara, moreover the Armenophobia of the previous century which had culminated into the Armenian Genocide, seemingly hasn’t not only stopped but was exported into our region.”
Aivazian stated that he was not aware of any format in which consultations or talks could take place with Ankara, but stressed, “in order for there to be truly peace in our region, we expect that Turkey will make serious and fundamental changes into its aggressive policy against Armenia and will abolish its hostile actions”.