December 22, 2008 - 15:22 AMT
International community's attitude to Armenian Genocide recognition changed
The international community's attitude to recognition the Armenian Genocide has considerably changed recently, an Armenian professor said.

"Several years ago politicians and historians in the United State could question the fact of the Genocide. Now, the situation is quite different. Media publications referring to the 1915 events blame the Ottoman Empire for the massacre of Armenians," Ruben Safrastyan, director of the institute of oriental studies at the RA academy of sciences, told a news conference in Yerevan.

Turkish political elite can't renounce the Ottoman heritage. This is the problem of the Armenian-Turkish relations, according to him.

"Turkey fears that Armenia will lay territorial claims. Actually, it's impossible over the absence an appropriate international legal mechanism," prof. Safrastyan said.