Change Of Power Did not Affect Turkish Armenian Relations

Talking about the goal of his visit, Soyak said that this time they have two tasks, but pitifully are able to implement only one, which is to organize meetings between several Eastern Turkish cities’ Trade Unions representatives and Armenian businessmen. The second initiative, to bring a 4-member delegation comprised of chairmen of the Center for Eurasia Strategic Research and Institute for Armenian Research, as our readers should already know, failed. Talking on the reasons why the visit of the above-mentioned delegation did not take place, Soyak said that it was due to the false information spread by Armenian news agency Armenpress that the members of the delegation are going to visit the Armenian Genocide museum during their visit to Yerevan. This misinformation made the Turkish experts to postpone their visit, but not cancel it. Answering to our remark that the visit was initiated by Arsen Ghazarian, the Armenian co-chairman of the TABDC, Mr. Soyak said that the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council contributes to organization of such visits to the best of its ability. He said that if the Turkish group, despite of the ‘incident’, decides to visit Armenia, it will have meetings with the experts of Raffi Hovhannisian’s Armenian Center for Strategic and National Research, as well as Armen Darbinian’s Slavonic University. The Turkish delegates, if paying the visit, will also meet with the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Lavrenty Barseghian, as well as with historians of Armenian National Academy of Sciences. Talking on the effectiveness of the meeting, Mr. Soyak said that in any case it would not have a negative impact on mutual relations, and moreover, will enable to get to know each other’s viewpoints closer.

Talking on the cooperation on the business level, the co-chairman of the TABDC said that they aim to boost the business ties between Armenia and particularly the eastern regions of Turkey. The Turkish entrepreneurs of Anatolia (historical Western Armenia) want to find a way to Central Asian and Russian markets via Armenia, that is why they strive to establish strong business ties with their Armenian partners. Mr. Soyak also said that since 1997 the business council achieved quite a progress in mutual trade as well as business contacts. He ruled out our remark that after the change of power in Armenia (after Levon Ter-Petrosian resigned from presidential post) the Turkish-Armenian relations aggravated. He assured that during the presidency of current president Robert Kocharian also some serious steps were made in narrowing the business interests, as well as certain bridges were built between the two countries’ scientific and non-governmental organizations. Kaan Soyak concluded his comments saying that he believes in the future of Turkish-Armenian relations.

By Hagop Chakrian