YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, NOYAN TAPAN. "Armenia has demonstrated to the world that it will not retreat from the values forming our collective identity, in particular, the Genocide and the Karabakh problem, and it is resolute in these issues," Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharian said in an interview with Shant television company (Armenia). In his words, in Zurich, Turkey made yet another attempt to back out of its commitments, thus showing to the world that it is not reliable. S. Kocharian said that the reason for an over three-hour delay in the signing of the protocols on normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations in Zurich on October 10 was that Turkey attempted to include the clauses, which it had failed to put in the protocols, in the text of a spoken statement (envisaged by the procedure) to be made following the signing. S. Kocharian disagreed with the observation that the Armenian side was dispirited during the protocols' signing. "He who smiled was dispirited - the smile was a rescue in the given situation", he noted. (NT: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutogly, who signed the protocols on behalf of Turkey, was smiling). In the opinion of S. Kocharian, Turkey did not gain from the delay in the signing ceremony: over 3 hours, the television channels throughout the world were speaking about the Genocide and demonstrating the respective scenes. According to S. Kocharian, despite an agreement to give the texts of the statements to each other, the Turkish side did not present the text of its statement up until the start of the ceremony, which aroused suspicions of the Armenian delegation: it was the reason why the Armenian delegation did not arrive at the appointed time. "At first they familiarized us with the text verbally, and it became evident that the text contained points unacceptable to us - points which might call into question the fact of the Genocide and also create a direct or indirect link with the Nagorno Karabakh problem," S. Kocharian said, stressing: "The Turkish side was trying to take a step unacceptable to Armenia, but this step was prevented - also thanks to efforts of the mediators". S. Kocharian refuted the information spread by Russian mass media that Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov had sent a note to his Armenian counterpart, and that note said: "Edward, agree to the signing without statements". "Russia's contribution to the whole process was quite considerable, but there was no such note," the RA deputy foreign minister said. In his words, there are serious problems in the further section of this thorny path, and the mediators are also aware that the path is not so smooth and presupposes their involvement, to some extent. S. Kocharian expressed an opinion that the deeper Turkey gets involved in the process, the more difficult it becomes for it to retreat from it: in case of Turkish parliament's not ratifying the protocols, quite a serious problem will arise for Turkey, and if Turkey tries to deviate from the process after the ratification, this "will also create a new situation".

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