REGIONS OF KARS SUPPORT BORDER OPENING

Azg/arm
26 Nov 04

Turkish online edition of Gazetem posted an article in one of its July
issues informing that the town of Kars counting 130 thousand people
assembled 56 thousand signatures for Armenian-Turkish border-gate
opening. The author of the article considers border opening the last
hope for Kars in its hard economic situation.

Few days ago, on November 18, another Turkish newspaper, Akos turned
to the issue of signature gathering, emphasizing that Kars citizens
are determined in their striving and that the concern has overflowed
to the whole region of Kars.

The paper indicates to town of Aqyaqa of the region citizens of which
followed the example of Kars population and organized a signature
gathering. Apparently, the initiative came from Kars mayor Naif
Alibeyoghli who interviewed to Akos.

Declaring Kars a sister town for the towns of Armenia, Georgia and
Azerbaijan, Alibeyoghli said: “Everyone in Kars and neighboring
regions demands border-gate opening because trade is the best way
for fighting confrontations. Perhaps we can even bring solution to
Karabakh issue by that step”.

The mayor noted at the end that Kars suffers the most as a result
of Turkeyâ~@~Ys blockade of Armenia and to show how illogical the
situation is said: “You can easily find Armenian vodka in Istanbul
though the border is closed”.

By Hakob Chakrian

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