Armenia ‘lucky enough’ not to have diplomatic dialogue with Turkey – Istanbul-Armenian journalist

The negative impact of Turkey’s recent constitutional referendum will not be immediately projected on the ethnic minorities, a Turkish-Armenian journalist said today, not regretting at all that the country has not yet established diplomatic relations with Yerevan.

“We will be affected as much as any citizen of Turkey,” Bagrat Estukyan, an editor of the Istanbul- Armenian weekly Agos told reporters at a debate held in Yerevan’s Media Center.

“The important thing for us is that Turkey’s current government has pushed the country into a state of a deep chaos,” he said.

By adopting the presidential regime, the country practically decided against pursuing Western values, Estukyan added.

 

Asked to comment on the general foreign policy impact, he pointed out first to Turkey’s responsibility for the Syrian crisis. He blamed the Turkish government for every single drop of blood lost in the country.

 

Estukyan said he finds that Armenia is among the lucky countries not maintaining diplomatic relations with Turkey. “If your neighbor isn’t kind, it really poses hazards. So it is really better not to have [any relations at all],” he said, hailing at the same time the potentially developing dialogue between the two countries’ societies.