Deutsche Presse-Agentur
November 17, 2004, Wednesday
17:15:22 Central European Time

INTERVIEW: Armenia hopes to join E.U. in 20 years, says minister

By Leon Mangasarian, dpa

Berlin

Armenia hopes to join the European Union within 20 years and has no
objections to its arch-rival Turkey joining the bloc if Ankara meets
strict membership terms, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan
said Wednesday. “We would like to be a European Union (E.U.) member
… the sooner the better,” said Oskanyan in an interview with
Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa, after talks between German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder and Armenian President Robert Kocharian in Berlin.
Oskanyan said the path used by the 10 mainly east European nations,
which joined the E.U. earlier this year, showed Yerevan the blueprint
it had to follow. “More needs to be done but a lot will depend on
Armenia,” he said, adding Armenia had to reform its legislature,
institutions and democratic system as well as fight corruption to be
on track for possible E.U. accession negotiations. But he stressed
the process of completing reforms to meet E.U. standards was highly
positive in itself and that the journey toward joining the Union was
just as valuable as the final prize. Asked when his country expected
to join, he said: “Maybe in 15 or 20 years.” Turning to Turkey’s bid
to join the E.U., Oskanyan said his government had no objections but
was noting with concern that the E.U. seemed to have watered down
some of its criteria in the case of Turkey. Armenia, he said could
not understand how Turkey could be recommended for E.U. membership
talks while its border to Armenia remained closed. Oskanyan also
noted that Turkey’s penal code banned any mention of the term
genocide in reference to the killing of Christian Armenians by Moslem
Turks during and after the First World War. Armenia and many
historians say the killings amount to a genocide as between 800,000
and 1.5 million Armenians died during this period. But Turkey has
always rejected this and insisted a smaller number of Armenians were
killed during the war when they rebelled against Turkish rule.
Nevertheless, Oskanyan said Armenia had “no problem” with Turkish
E.U. membership because this would lead to European standards of
minority rights and full freedom of speech in Turkey as well as an
E.U. member state bordering on Armenia. He said Turkish recognition
of “genocide” was not a precondition for normal ties between Ankara
and Yerevan. Turkey is expected to get a green light at the scheduled
December 17 E.U. summit in Brussels to begin accession talks. Turkish
leaders admit it could take until 2019 before their country becomes a
full member. Turning to an uneasy truce over the mountainous
Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and mainly Moslem Azerbaijan
which has held since their war over the region ended in 1994,
Oskanyan complained that Azerbaijan was backtracking on moves aimed
at a final accord. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a bitter war over
Nagorno-Karabakh in which an estimated 35,000 people were killed and
some one million became refugees. Nagorno-Karabakh is an ethnic
Armenian region but lies within the internationally recognized
borders of Azerbaijan. The Armenian state supports ethnic Armenians
in Nagorno-Karabakh and it military occupies about 16 per cent of
Azerbaijan. Oskanyan said his government wanted the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to continue to mediate the
dispute, and he opposed recent moves by Azerbaijan to shift talks to
the U.N. dpa lm emc