Armenia should withdraw territorial claims to save statehood - Pashinyan

YEREVAN. May 3 (Interfax) - Armenia should withdraw all territorial claims, or it will lose its statehood, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.

"Armenia should announce that it does not have and will not have territorial claims. It's the only principle that will give us a chance to have a state. Otherwise everything will be done from four sides to ensure that we cease to exist as a state. And they are doing [it]," Pashinyan said at a government hour meeting in parliament on Wednesday.

"Being a state means having normal relations in the regional environment," he said.

Pashinyan also said the closure by Turkey of its air space to Armenian planes flying to third countries is more of a problem for Armenia than Turkey. Armenia has almost never followed its economic interests, but instead its emotions, he said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday that Turkey closed its airspace to Armenian planes en route to third countries "in response to the provocative placement of the Nemesis monument in the center of Yerevan." A monument to Operation Nemesis was unveiled in central Yerevan on April 25 at a request from the descendants of some members of the Nemesis group, which carried out the operation as an act of retribution against the organizers of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.