Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's statement on the 1915 events in the Ottoman Empire is a part of the process that has been going on over the past 4.5 years, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says when commenting on Erdogan's April 23 statement, 1news.az reports with reference to CNN Turk.
Davutoglu says that history does not consist of black and white pages only. He thinks that everyone should have the virtue to share the sorrow of the past.
The Turkish Foreign Minister says that Erdogan's statement may be a surprise for some people, however, Turkey's stand is known.
He says that on the day the Armenian-Turkish protocols were signed in 2009 official Ankara suggested that the parties should come out with a statement and the content of Turkey's statement was similar to that of Erdogan's current statement.
Davutoglu stresses that Erdogan's statement is an address to Armenia and the Armenians. He hopes that Armenia will respond to that address.
At the April 23 meeting of the Parliament, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered condolences to the descendants of the Armenian Genocide victims but qualified the Genocide as events in early XX century.
To recall, Armenia and Turkey lack diplomatic relations and the 330 km border between the two countries has been closed since 1993 on Ankara's initiative. The complicated relations between the counties are explained by the fact that Turkey supports Azerbaijani stance on the Karabakh problem and vehemently reacts to the process of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide 1915.