Turkish opposition: we are ready to negotiate with Armenians without preconditions

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey’s ruling and main opposition parties are ready to normalize relations with Armenia and open the border, but the two are on conflicting sides of the debate over preconditions for negotiations, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

“We are ready to negotiate with Armenians without preconditions,” Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, told a group Turkish, Armenian and U.S. journalists on June 20. The statement was in response to a question from a U.S. journalist who said that “the CHP’s policy regarding ties with Armenia was not different from that of the ruling Justice and Development Party as both parties were putting Armenia’s withdrawal from Nagorno Karabakh as a condition.”

“The difference between us and the AKP is that we see a possible withdrawal as a gesture, not a condition,” said Osman Korutürk, deputy leader of the CHP and former ambassador. Kılıçdaroğlu added: “No one can say that I agreed with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on this issue.”