'The liberation of the occupied Azerbaijani lands is needed to settle all issues in our region.'
Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaking in the parliament on April 26 said “Turkey has never left Azerbaijan’s interests aside during the negotiations with Armenia”.
According to CNN-Turk, the premier said: “We have repeatedly stated and we state now that the Armenian-Turkish relations will not be normalized without the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani ties”.
In turn, leader of Turkish nationalists Devlet Bakhchali has sent an appeal to the government about the immediate withdrawal of protocols on the normalization of the Turkish-Armenian relations from the country’s parliament.
According to Hurriyet, the appeal says that the signing of these protocols was initially an erroneous step of the government and did not meet Turkey’s interests.
“By the fault of the current government, Armenia which was an isolated country of the Caucasus has again reminded the world community about itself. It has not had such a diplomatic success since gaining independence. The current Turkish leadership whose diplomacy showed its weakness played a great role in this issue. It is also frustrating that the government under the US pressure is still trying to save these protocols. Why should Turkey normalize the relations with a country which is hostile to us, whose Constitution is stating clear territorial claims to our country and which holds Azerbaijani lands under occupation. Therefore, we view the withdrawal of these vicious protocols from the government as the only way out of the established situation”, the appeal says.
“We call on the Premier to put an end to this ridiculous scene and declare the signed protocols invalid and withdraw them from the parliament”, the appeal says.
The leader of another oppositional People’s Republican Party Deniz Baykal also spoke stiffly. He said the biggest mistake of the government was the failure to gain the inclusion of provisions on liberation of the occupied Azerbaijani lands into the protocols.
“This was our biggest mistake to sign protocols with Armenia without respect to the Karabakh conflict. The liberation of the occupied Azerbaijani lands is needed to settle all issues in our region. This is the only step to establish stability in the Caucasus. It is impossible to settle other problems without the resolution of the Karabakh conflict. Our government has declared the policy of “zero problems with neighbors” but in some time the flags of Turkey and portraits of the Turkish leaders were burnt in Yerevan. If they call this zero problems with neighbors, I have nothing to say then”, Baykal said.
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