Agence France Presse — English
November 18, 2004 Thursday 5:38 PM GMT

Armenia’s President Kocharian says Turkey bullying his country

BERLIN

President Robert Kocharian of Armenia has accused neighbouring Turkey
of trying to seal off and bully his country by closing their border
for the last decade in a gesture of support for another neighbour
Azerbaijan, in remarks to be published on Friday.

In an interview with the Friday edition of the German newspaper Die
Welt, Kocharian said: “Turkey is sealing off Armenia, and you can
only call that bullying.”

He said the closure of the frontier since 1993 was a reflex act of
solidarity with Azerbaijan.

Armenia has had tense relations with its Caucasian neighbour
Azerbaijan since both became independent from the Soviet Union with
its collapse in 1991.

The cause of the trouble is the mainly Armenian-populated enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.

The territory is claimed by Azerbaijan but currently ruled by a
self-styled independent government recognized only by Armenia.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia to support Azerbaijan in its
war against Yerevan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

A close ally of Azerbaijan, Turkey has declined to establish
diplomatic ties with Armenia.

Kocharian, currently in Berlin for an economic conference, said his
country had set no preconditions for normalisation of relations with
Turkey.

“For us it is very important that Turkey should acknowledge its
genocide of Armenians in 1915 but this will never be a condition for
development of bilateral relations,” he was quoted as saying.

But if Turkey did admit to genocide it would be a big step towards
normalisation, he said.

The subject of the Armenian massacre has remained a controversial one
touching Turkish and Armenian sensitivities for nigh on nine decades,
with Turkey categorically refusing to acknowledge that genocide had
occurred in 1915-1917 when up to 1.5 million Armenians died.