Political analyst Ruben Hakobyan described both sides in the process to normalize Armenian-Turkish relations as lacking "sincerity" at a press conference today. He said that it wasn’t coincidental that the process had been nicknamed "football diplomacy" given that both parties have been trying to manoeuvre past one another, just like in football. Mr. Hakobyan said that from the start, the normalization process lacked any real long-term prospects. "From the get-go, Turkey was couching everything in terms of preconditions, but our government has only recently noticed them. Erdogan would wake up every day and say that they have preconditions. Our officials would say, don’t believe them, trust us." Republican Party MP Gagik Melikyan counterd that the Protocols contained no preconditions but agreed that top Turkish officials were attempting to raise certain ones. "Such preconditions are unacceptable to us," MP Melikyan said. Mr. Hakobyan argued that the entire normalization process and the Protocols were only in the best interests of Turkey since Ankara had long desired to enter regional affairs as a player and that Armenia afforded them such an entry, at the initiative of Russia. "Turkey also showed international public opinion that it could enter into serious relations with Armenia at any moment and, by doing so, made it understood that recognition of the Genocide shouldn’t be pursued," Mr. Hakobyan said. MP Melikyan countered ny saying that Turkey had always been a serious regional factor and that Armenia was merely trying to establish diplomatic relations. Mr. Hakobyan concluded that as a result of the statement released in 2009 on the eve of April 24 by Turkey and Armenia on a "comprehensive framework for the normalization of their bilateral relations in a mutually satisfactory manner", Armenia had handed Turkey the tool it needed to halt the process of Genocide recognition.