Türkiye wants ‘full normalization’ of ties with Armenia: Parliament speaker

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA (AA) - The Turkish parliament speaker on Thursday met with his Armenian counterpart and said that Ankara wants “full normalization” of ties with Yerevan.

Mustafa Sentop and Alen Simonyan held a closed-door meeting on the sidelines of the 61st General Assembly of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC).

"We will continue to support the PABSEC work in the strongest way from now on," Sentop told Simonyan.

Noting that Türkiye desires the establishment of good neighborly relations in its region, Sentop said: "Our aim in our normalization process with Armenia is essentially to realize this desire."

He added it is necessary to avoid steps that will harm the normalization process.

About the inauguration of the "Nemesis Monument" in the Armenian capital Yerevan, Sentop said it is an "unacceptable development that openly glorifies terrorism and makes terrorists heroic."

The monument honors perpetrators of assassinations against Ottoman and Azerbaijani officials in the early 1920s.

"The opening of this monument has created a serious disturbance in Türkiye. I think that we look at this issue as a very sensitive issue, that we will not accept the glorification of terrorism in any way and that such events will negatively affect good neighborly relations," he added.

Sentop said that the signing of a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan as soon as possible is of great importance for comprehensive normalization in the region, adding: "Such a development will start a new period of opportunity and cooperation for our region, and Armenia will also benefit from it like all the countries in the region."

For his part, Simonyan said that Armenia approaches relations with Türkiye in a "constructive" way and added the opening of the monument was not related to state policy and that no deputies from the government attended the opening ceremony.

"No deputies representing the government were present at that ceremony. Those deputies are the ones representing the opposition and they criticize us for taking a step in this (normalization) process. We anticipate that there will be many obstacles and difficulties on this path, but we have to go through them so that we can reach a conclusion," he added.

Simonyan also said that they want peace with Azerbaijan and want to sign a peace agreement with Baku.

Meanwhile, Sentop separately met with his Montenegrin counterpart Danijela Djurovic, Morocco’s Rachid Talbi Alami, and Serbian parliament speaker Vladimir Orlic on the sidelines of the meeting.