Turkey, Armenia have different reconciliations of the 1915 events, Turkish Ambassador to Czech Republic Cihad Erginay said in an interview with RFE/RL
“The Armenians term it as genocide, as alleged genocide. We say they are unfortunate events that happened during the First World War,” he said.
The envoy said catastrophic events took place but the sides must discuss them and leave to historians the right to find out what exactly happened, he added.
He recalled that several years ago Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to form a commission of historians who would discuss the matter openly.
“But we hope that [the Armenians] will [accept the commission] some day in order for us to open the gates for better relations between two countries, which we wish for,” Erginay said.
Speaking about joining the EU, the Ambassador stressed that Turkey is holding talks on full membership and hopes it would happen sooner or later.
Erginay said that Turkey has become almost a new country over the last ten years and “now it is the 16th strongest economy in the world, it’s the sixth strongest economy in Europe, it is a country which is the biggest contributor to operations in NATO.”
Commenting on the Cyprus dispute, the Ambassador noted Turkey is actively trying to solve it. He expressed confidence the talks would be over by the end of this year, as “an open-ended negotiating process is getting us nowhere.”
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