Ruben Rubinyan, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia and Special Representative of Armenia for normalization of relations with Turkey, addressed a number of questions of opposition MPs regarding the meeting with the Special Representative of Turkey Serdar Kilic on January 14. 

“In our case, a special representative is not a position, it’s a function, I was not appointed to any position, I continue to be the Deputy Speaker of the NA, but I carry out the activities of a special representative. I don’t understand what’s the problem here.”

Rubinyan also referred to the question why the car of the special representative of Turkey was with a flag․ “Prior to the meeting of the special representatives in Moscow, two special representatives also had bilateral meetings with Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Rudenko, and, as far as I know, the Turkish special Representative went to the meeting with the Turkish Ambassador to Russia, and this car with the Turkish flag that you saw is most likely the car of the Turkish ambassador. You are asking how did they agree to appoint special representatives? Majority of the representatives of your faction are experienced people, there are experienced journalists among you, there are diplomats among you, there are people holding positions, isn’t it clear it works? Everything was public, and now you’re saying that you’ve learnt everythimg from Turkey․․․ so far, there has not been a single event that our relevant department, in this context, the Foreign Ministry, has not informed about.”

According to Rubinyan, in the history of Armenia, negotiations with Turkey took place under all presidents․ “And in different formats, under Levon Ter-Petrosyan, under Robert Kocharyan, under Serzh Sargsyan. And what do you think, what percent of these negotiations was secret and what was open? It was more secret than open. For example, the football diplomacy, dear colleagues, the public part of which began during the presidency of Serzh Sargsyan, do you think that the non-public part of this process began during the presidency of Serzh Sargsyan? No, the beginning was laid during the presidency of Robert Kocharyan. The question is whether there were secret processes between Armenia and Turkey and why during the presidency of Robert Kocharyan it wasn’t made public?