Turkey condemns Sarksyan telling young Armenians to "get back" eastern Turkey

The Foreign Ministry yesterday condemned a speech by Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan telling his country's schoolchildren that they should one day try to acquire eastern Turkey. Asked by a student in Yerevan if Armenians will be able to get back what they call "western territories," including Mt. Agri (Mt. Ararat), Sarksyan said, "This is the task of your generation." Sarksyan said his generation had done its duty by "getting back" Karabakh, a part of what he called "our motherland from the enemy." Nagorno-Karabakh is an Azerbaijani territory currently under Armenian occupation, part of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territories now so occupied. But a Foreign Ministry statement said statesmen's primary duty is to prepare their societies, particularly young people, for a peaceful and prosperous future. It is "very irresponsible" to provoke animosity and hatred among nations in young people, said the statement. Amid stepped-up peace efforts in the region, such remarks by Armenia's president indicate that "he has no intention to seek peace," the ministry added. Two years ago Turkey and Armenia made a failed attempt to bury a century of hostilities by signing twin protocols on normalizing relations, establishing diplomatic ties, and reopening their shared border.