YEREVAN (Armenpress) — During the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s 62nd session, Armenian member of parliament (MP) Koryun Nahapetyan in his speech criticized Turkey, presenting it as a terrorist-supporting state, according to the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet. The Armenian MP’s question angered Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Addressing his question to Cavusoglu, Nahapetyan said that Turkey is supporting the “Islamic State” terrorist group. He stated: “Turkey, pretending that it is fighting against terrorists, in reality is killing Kurds by supporting the ‘Islamic State’ group. Turkey unilaterally closed the borders with Armenia and ignores all the efforts of international community towards normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations. It’s obvious that any involvement of Ankara in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict would only harm it because of Turkey’s biased position and its tendency to support Azerbaijan at any cost. The April 2-5 events unleashed by Azerbaijan in the line of contact between Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh and the provocative statement from Turkey are clear proof of that. At the moment Turkey has its troops deployed in three neighboring countries, in each of these cases without the agreement of their governments. My question is: How does Turkey see the development of relations with its neighbors?”
In response to Nahapetyan’s question, the Turkish minister replied that Turkey supports the territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria. He blamed the Armenian side as being as unfair, stating: “We can have different views. You are from Armenia; I am a Turk. But first of all it is necessary to be fair, especially when we are political figures. Unfortunately, I have seen for many years in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that our Armenian partners are never fair.”
