NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Nov 19 2004
Turkey punishes Armenia: Kocaryan
The Armenia head of state Robert Kocaryan said that they have no pre
conditions for the normalisation of relations with Turkey.
November 19 – Armenia’s President Robert Kocaryan has claimed that
Turkey is keeping its border crossing point with Armenia shut in
order to punish his country.
Speaking in an interview with the German Die Welt newspaper
Kocaryan said that the border gate had been closed in 1993 by Ankara
as a gesture of support for Azerbaijan.
`Turkey keeps Armenia under siege and this can only be counted
as a punishment,’ he told the paper.
Currently, Armenia holds up to 20 percent of Azeri territory
as a result of a more than decade long conflict with the former post
Soviet republics.
Kocaryan went on to say that recognition of the alleged
Armenian genocide by Ankara was very important for Armenians and
would be a great step towards normalising relations but was not a pre
condition on its own.