Pashinyan Shouldn’t Have Invited Turkish Journalists to Yerevan for an Interview — By Harut Sassounian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made yet another mistake last week by inviting 10 journalists from Turkey to Yerevan and speaking to them for one and a half hours.
Before we go into the substance of Pashinyan’s remarks, I would like to point out some of the basic problems with his statements and those of his spokesperson.
First of all, the spokesperson revealed that the Turkish journalists had been invited to Yerevan at the Armenian government’s expense. This violates journalistic ethics. Professional journalists are not offered and do not accept payment for their travel and accommodation to maintain their independence from the subject of the interview.
Secondly, the spokesperson for Pashinyan said that Armenia had invited Turkish journalists from all sides of the political spectrum, including pro-government, opposition, and independent media. Anyone who follows the Turkish media knows that there are hardly any opposition journalists left in Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has either taken over all the opposition media or shut them down and jailed the dissenting journalists. The invited journalists to Armenia were from: T24, Sozcu TV, Anadolu Agency, Hürriyet Daily News, Turkish Radio and Television, Medyascope, NTV, Agos Armenian newspaper, Ihlas News Agency, and CNN Turk. Only two out of the 10 invited Turkish news outlets, Sozcu TV and Agos, can be considered independent news outlets.
Thirdly, Pashinyan proudly told the Turkish journalists that his meeting with them was an unprecedented event. A usual, his statements are not based on facts.
The meeting with Turkish journalists in Yerevan was NOT unprecedented. There were several past meetings between Armenian officials and Turkish journalists. I remember one particular interview that took place in 2001 when prominent Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand of ‘CNN Turk’ came to Yerevan and interviewed Pres. Robert Kocharyan. That interview created a lot of controversy because Birand distorted what Kocharyan had told him by mistranslating his words from Armenian into Turkish. I wrote an article in 2001 pointing out Birand’s distortions and criticized Pres. Kocharyan for agreeing to give an interview on sensitive political topics which he and his advisors should have known was going to be distorted by the Turkish journalist. Besides Birand, many other Turkish journalists have come to Armenia to interview Armenian officials in the past. In addition, a large number of Armenian and Turkish journalists visited each other’s countries as part of the “Armenia-Turkey Team Reporting Project” in 2007-08.
Turkish journalists are notorious for distorting the words of the people they interview. For that reason, over the past 40 years, I have refused all Turkish requests for an interview.
Fourthly, Pashinyan falsely claimed that during previous Armenian governments, there were no direct contacts between Armenian and Turkish officials. He cited his invitation to attend Pres. Erdogan’s inauguration in Ankara and meeting him in New York. He also mentioned the visits of Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan to Ankara. He said that previously, Armenian and Turkish officials only learned of each other’s views through third parties. Pashinyan mentioned as “a concrete example of cooperation,” Armenia’s recent extradition to Turkey of two Turks accused of committing a crime.
Pashinyan’s claims that before him there were no official contacts between Armenia and Turkey are completely false. He wants to leave the impression that nothing happened in Armenia before he assumed power in 2018. There have been dozens of contacts between the officials of the two countries long before Pashinyan became Prime Minister. Here are some of them:
1) Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian went to Istanbul in 1992 to participate in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Conference.
2) Presidential Advisor Gerard Libaridian went to Ankara in 1992.
3) Pres. Levon Ter Petrossyan met with Alpaslan Turkesh, the founder of the ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves group and member of the Turkish Parliament, in Paris in 1993.
4) Pres. Ter Petrossyan, accompanied by Foreign Minister Vahan Papazyan and Presidential Advisor Gerard Libaridian, went to Ankara in 1993 to attend the funeral of Turkish Pres. Turgut Ozal. On that occasion, Ter Petrossyan met with Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel. During that visit, Ter Petrossyan also met with Azerbaijan’s Pres. Abulfaz Elchibey.
5) Turkish Pres. Abdullah Gul came to Yerevan to watch with Pres. Serzh Sargsyan the football match between Armenia and Turkey in 2008.
6) Pres. Serzh Sargsyan travelled to Bursa, Turkey, to watch the return football game between Armenia and Turkey with Turkish President Abdullah Gul in 2009.
7) Foreign Minister of Armenia Eduard Nalbandyan and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met in Zurich in 2009 to sign the Armenia-Turkey Protocols.
8) Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu came to Yerevan in 2013.
9) Foreign Minister Nalbandyan went to Ankara in 2014 to attend the inauguration of Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Therefore, Pashinyan is not correct that in the past Armenian and Turkish officials had no direct contacts and communicated only through third parties.
In my next article, I will comment on Pashinyan’s statements to the Turkish journalists who visited Yerevan last week.
