YEREVAN (ArmRadio)—“The lack of talks on Nagorno-Karabakh is connected with the huge blow to the negotiation process caused by the aggression against Artsakh last April,” Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said on Monday at a joint press conference with visiting Foreign Minister of Greece Nikos Kotzias.

“This pushed the negotiation process back,” Nalbandian said. He added that Armenia and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries are making efforts to create conditions conducive to the furthering the negotiation process.

The comments come after Azerbaijan Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov accused Armenia of freezing the Karabakh talks.

“It’s well known that the international community, the Minsk Group Co-Chairs and Armenia are speaking the same language, while Azerbaijan is speaking a different language,” Nalbandian said. He blamed Azerbaijan for the failure to implement the agreements reached at Vienna and St. Petersburg summits.

Nalbandian stressed that there is no alternative to the negotiations, and the OSACE Minsk Group Co-Chairs maintain efforts to further the negotiation process.

“The Co-Chairs will arrive in Armenia on March 27 and will visit Stepanakert, as well,” Nalbandian said.

Armenia is open to normalizing relations with Turkey without any preconditions, Nalbandian said during the joint press conference with Kotzias.

Nalbandian said he hopes Turkey will once adopt a similar stance and will respect the agreements reached. He reminded about the Armenian President’s initiative to normalize relations with Turkey without preconditions, which the latter turned down. “Although two protocols were signed, Turkey refused to ratify and implement those,” he said.

Nalbandian said that “as a nation subjected to the first genocide of the 20th century, Armenia feels obliged to make efforts to prevent new genocides, new crimes against humanity.”

“We are taking steps on different international platforms, including the UN in that direction,” Nalbandian said, adding that a number of resolutions have already been adopted.

The Minister reminded that the United Nations recently accepted Armenia’s initiative to proclaim December 9 as the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime.