Nationalistic mood always prevailed in Turkey
"Nationalistic mood always prevailed in Turkey. In this context, it's hard to discuss Armenian-Turkish rapprochement," Noravank Scientific Educational Center expert, turkologist Ruben Melkonyan told a news conference in Yerevan.
"Significant part of Turkish population supports nationalistic views, which was proved by recent elections into local government," the expert emphasized. Ruben Melkonyan reminded that antinationalistic mood's predominance was the reason Ankara changed the site of return football match between Armenian and Turkish teams from Kayseri to Bursa.
"In frontier cities of Turkey (Kars, Igdir) there are a great number of Azeri inhabitants. In case of border opening a number of problems could arise around the issue," the turkologist noted.
Dwelling on possibility of Armenian-Turkish rapprochement, Ruben Melkonyan noted that Turkey will take concrete steps towards normalization of ties with Armenia before the return match between Armenian and Turkish football teams.
"Significant part of Turkish population supports nationalistic views, which was proved by recent elections into local government," the expert emphasized. Ruben Melkonyan reminded that antinationalistic mood's predominance was the reason Ankara changed the site of return football match between Armenian and Turkish teams from Kayseri to Bursa.
"In frontier cities of Turkey (Kars, Igdir) there are a great number of Azeri inhabitants. In case of border opening a number of problems could arise around the issue," the turkologist noted.
Dwelling on possibility of Armenian-Turkish rapprochement, Ruben Melkonyan noted that Turkey will take concrete steps towards normalization of ties with Armenia before the return match between Armenian and Turkish football teams.
