Turkish FM: Turks and Armenians need to address painful parts of their common history by dialogue

Turks and Armenians need to address the painful parts of their common history by dialogue, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

"Through dialogue both sides can empathize and begin to properly respect the memory of so many lost lives on both sides," he said in an interview with Apminfo.

But for this to happen, we need a reliable factual basis, he said.

National memories are always partial and do not overlap in many cases," he said. That is where the Protocols will help by starting a dialogue on the historical dimension including an impartial scientific examination. We can move away from the clash of memories towards a just memory through such a dialogue. Yet, there is a continuous effort to have the Armenian memory accepted as uncontested truth in third countries".

"This campaign often assumes anti-Turkish zeal and rhetoric," he said. Such a perspective reflects a zero-sum game mentality".

We understand that Armenia cannot ignore the Diaspora. But that interaction should not always result in pleasing the hardliners and those who fail to see the historic opportunity before us, he said.

Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that the predecessor of Turkey - Ottoman Empire had committed the 1915 genocide against the Armenians living in Anadolu. The Armenians, willing the recognition of this fact in the world, achieved recognition of the "Armenian genocide" by the parliaments of some countrues, by strengthening the propaganda of the so-called "genocide" in the world countries.


/Trend/