Turkish Party Leader Sets Conditions for Armenia

The president of Turkey's extreme nationalist "Great Unity" Party (BBP-MMK), Mustafa Destici, addressed the topic of Armenia-Turkey dialogue and the Nagorno-Karabakh issue during a press conference.

Referring to the bill presented to the Turkish Parliament regarding the ratification of the "Shushi Declaration," he stated, "The declaration aims to strengthen and deepen the relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan, which is very correct. As the 'Great Unity' Party, we fully support this," reports "Ermenihaber."

Destici indicated that his party supports all steps taken concerning Azerbaijan. Regarding the normalization of relations with Armenia, he mentioned the veiled preconditions set by the Turkish authorities, saying, "We want the attempts to normalize relations with Armenia to be suspended until that country withdraws from all occupied territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and rejects the baseless claims of genocide against Turkey."

According to the Turkish party leader, if Armenia wishes to normalize relations with Turkey, it must take two important steps: "First, withdraw from all the occupied territories of Nagorno-Karabakh. And second, renounce the so-called claims of Armenian genocide. Without these renunciations, the normalization process will be neither healthy nor sustainable. April 24 will come, statements will be made again, and as a result, the process will pause once more. Therefore, precautionary measures must be taken from the outset."