Last week Armenia announced that it was lifting the ban on import of Turkish products, put in place as a response to Turkey’s violent and aggressive role in the 2020 war.
After the initial six-months, the government, in June of last year, extended the ban for another six months.
Since then, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his government have plunged deep in an effort to normalize relations with Turkey, by appointing an envoy to lead negotiations and allowing an Armenia-based airlines to conduct charter flights from Yerevan to Istanbul.
Lawmaker Babken Tunyan, a member of Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party, rationalized the decision to lift the embargo on Turkish goods in an interview with Armenpress’ Aram Sargsyan published on Tuesday. Tunyan, who is the deputy chairman of the parliament’s committee on economic affairs, said that the decision was made taking into account all opinions on the subject.
Tunyan claimed that the ban was not yielding the desired effect, adding that despite the embargo many importers were circumventing the procedures in place and continued to import Turkish goods.
“If we look at this issue from a patriotic perspective, what matters is – why is there demand for Turkish products in Armenia? If we were to compare with the situation we had during the 44-day war when everyone was boycotting Turkish products, now we must understand why people are again willing to buy Turkish products. If there is demand for a product, that product will find its way into the market and will reach the consumer, be it in through circumvention of rules or at higher costs. That’s why it’s not right to artificially do something. If we put aside the emotional aspect, we must evaluate its effectiveness from an economic perspective,” Tunyan told Armenpress.
Tunyan, an economist, further rationalized that the ban was temporary and partial, with only manufactured goods being prohibited. Moreover, the list of banned products was revised several times because it turned out there was no alternative in the market.
“From an economic standpoint, unfortunately, this ban led to a situation where Turkish products were entering Armenia through different ways, because carrying out customs administration and control is practically impossible, and this simply led to prices of clothes, household items and other products in Armenia to increase, because these products are going through more complicated ways. Meaning, the objective we’d initially set politically did not serve its purpose,” said Tunyan, without elaborating whether the parliament or the government are eyeing punitive measures against those who violated the ban.
Armenia’s Economy Ministry evaluated that the ban on Turkish products had both positive and negative economic consequences.
Several newly launched or expanded industries, such as production of furniture and construction materials as well as agriculture were among the positive impacts of the ban, according to the ministry. However, the ministry has assessed that ban had a “significant impact on inflation.”
In the end, it seems, it was Armenian business owners who pressured the lifting of the ban.
You son of a bitch. Bozi vastak!
Shame on this dysfunctional government. They are a bunch of traitors trying to rationalize all the anti-Armenian steps they are taking. Dishonorable zombies have some honor and respect for all those who made the ultimate sacrifice by giving their lives in protection of the homeland only yesterday and here you are conducting business as usual with the same genocidal terrorist Turkish state that planned, conducted and dictated this war on behalf of KGB MAFIA Aliyev clan. You are a disgrace to the Armenian nation!
You are one of the fanatics to critizise the administration without thinking the interest of yoıur nation. I am afraid you belong to Armenian diaspora. You and the fanatics such as you continue to defame the Turkish Nation unfairly, ignoring moral rules, without any authorized international court decision.If you have enough courage, apply to an international court with the documents you have. Why can’t you apply? Because then the world public will learn that your ancestors united with the enemy and rebelled against their own state, and your ancestors murdered defenseless Muslim old, children and women while the young Turkish population was struggling with the enemy who meant the existence of their country on six fronts.
You sound like another institutionally brainwashed Turk detached from reality. You don’t need me, or anyone else for that matter, to defame your Turkish nation. Your bloody history tells everything you need to know about your nation. What have Turks done since the mid 15th century other than invade other nations, occupy their lands and subjugate their indigenous populations? Absolutely nothing. Your entire history is full of bloodshed and massacres. That is how you invented Turkey on the lands of the natives you murdered in cold blood.
My ancestors united with “the enemy”, the Russian enemy whose name you can’t even mention, the same Russian enemy with which that loud mouth Er-dog-an is having a honeymoon these days. You never had a state of your own for the natives to rebel against. You created your state on the lands and corpses of the natives you murdered. And here you are calling the natives rebels rebelling against a foreign Turkish tribe from Central Asia transplanting itself on the lands of the natives.
Occupied Armenian territories in today’s eastern Turkey, Western Armenia, are not Turkish for the Armenians to rebel against “their own” state. How funny that the Central Asian Turkish invader and the occupier considers the genocidal Turkish nation a victim of their own crimes. The criminal has become the victim! Of the two million Armenians living in the six Turkish-occupied Armenian provinces, 1.5 million were murdered as a result of a premeditated state-sponsored terrorism and race annihilation in 1915 under the cover of WWI and you claim the rest, all bunch of orphans, managed to kill 600K Turks? Where is the logic in that? I find it interesting you used the word “Muslim” because it shows you make a distinction between the native Christians and Muslim invaders and occupiers. How ironic that you speak such nonsense while your Islamo-fascist leader Er-dog-an recently re-converted the Greek Byzantine Hagia Sophia the basilica of Eastern Orthodoxy into a mosque! You can’t help yourselves it is in you blood. They say you can take a monkey out of the jungle but you can never take the jungle out of the monkey! Once a bloody Turk always a bloody Turk! Your homeland is in Central Asia. Turkey is occupied Armenia and Greece!
BELOW IS THE REPLY SENT BY SEVGIN OKTAY ;
Mr. Ararat,
There has lately been some movement towards reason overcoming emotion when it comes to the relations between Armenia and Turkey. Let’s leave aside hearsay and unfounded claims. It would be to the benefit of both Armenia and Turkey- especially Armenia, let me hasten to add- if the relations between the two countries normalized, like unconditional open borders, and free trade between the two countries. Please encourage the two sides for reproachment to get back to the good relations that lasted for centuries between the Turks and the Armenians until the Dashnaks misled their own kin as your first Prime Minister Hovhannes Katchaznouni complained many times before. Thank you.
May I see your phot? Try to be brave…
@Orhan Tan, Erdogan’s government is counting on corrupt historians and corrupt politicians to change the facts and the reality, he was able to brainwash most of the Turkish public for a distorted truth, but there are educated Turks that are aware of the truth and can’t claim the Armenian Genocide did happen because of lack of Democracy in Turkey, Mr. Orhan if you are really interested in finding out the truth, you can read, there’s a lot of material out there, some of them written by Turkish intellectuals. Stupid and distorted history facts can’t help for finding a common ground for peace.
Mr. Raffi, you know Turks from your revengeful Armenian comrades. Democracy in Turkey is very rooted. The current political situation is temporary. It is out of our discussion. Contemporary people cannot be brainwashed. Please protect your brain.. If your claims are based on valid documents, please apply to a competent international court (eg International Court of Justice – ICJ). If you can win, then you would have the right to say that “the Turks committed genocide”. Otherwise, you will be extremely embarrassed on the grounds that you have insulted the Turkish Nation in the international arena. From your point say T”hank goodness Orhan is not authorized to file such a lawsuit.” Turkish intellectuals, the most famous of them, escaped from prison, all live on the money of Armenians. My advice is, take advantage of the Turkey-Armenia rapprochement unless you are a diaspora member, because most of them are people full of hatred, unable to even think about their soul brohers and sisters in Armenia. Your ancestors rebelled, the Ottomans took necessary and legal measures. Now you say Turks are genocidal. Another nation, the Greeks, attempted to invade our country between 1919 and 1922, and they committed all kinds of massacres, rapes and destruction for three years. They slandered us as genocidal. My ancestors ruled them for 400 years. Examine, no injustice was found. Have a peaceful year…