'I repeatedly suggested Nalbandian as a face closing gesture for Azerbaijan to return one or two of occupied territories'.
I must say that three years we were working on the protocols with Armenian side. In reality, our contacts with Armenia were started in 2005, when the government announced about its openness to the whole world and its policy of having "zero problem with neighbors", Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says in an interview to Armenian newspaper AZG Daily.
In reality, our negotiations with the Armenian side were pursuing 3 goals:
1) to establish direct and indirect relationships, opening the border and establishing diplomatic relations
2) between Turkey and Armenia, and:
3) between Turks and Armenians. Here I mean the Armenians of Diaspora, which we consider our diaspora, as they have migrated from Turkey to America, France ... We recently had a meeting here with Barsamian (referring to Archbishop Khajag Barsamian of US Eastern Diocese of Armenian Apostolic Church).
Many people believe that Protocols simply mean the confirmation of opening the border and diplomatic relations. Meanwhile, there are conciliation and solutions about historical issues in Protocols. In other words, we (together with the Armenian side) have discussed a series of issues and came to an agreement.
They, the Armenians, believe that the normalization of relations is conditioned only by opening of the borders and diplomatic relations. Whereas, we have great experience in such cases. For example, we have made supreme efforts to succeed in reconciliation between Syria and Israel, and when it seemed the problem is already in process of solving, the operations happened in Gaza and everything returned to the starting point. Nothing changes only by opening of the border. There is a whole range of issues that need to be put in the process of complex resolution. And if on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, where almost every day firing takes place, something will happen, shall we close the border again? In this case, all perspectives of relations' establishment and conflict resolution will fall to the ground for a long time.
We cannot permit ourselves to lose Azerbaijan for the sake of the relations with Armenia. We have asked President Sargsyan, I repeatedly suggested my counterpart Nalbandian as a face closing gesture for Azerbaijan to return one or two of the occupied territories, for example, Fizuli and Aghdam, in that case Baku will also be ready to open its border. Armenia rejected.
At the end, Turkish Foreign Minister informed about the appointment of Armenian Ambassador to Paris, who is already familiar to our readers. What refers to his some expressions, there will be a chance to touch upon them later
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