Reuters
Dec 9 2004

Armenia hopes Turkey in EU will reopen border
09 Dec 2004 19:34:46 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Sebastian Alison

BRUSSELS, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Turkish accession to the EU should lead
to a more open society which would open its border with Armenia and
recognise a genocide of Armenians early last century, Armenia’s
foreign minister said on Thursday.

Vardan Oskanyan told Reuters in an interview that the European Union
should press Turkey “aggressively” to reopen the border. EU leaders
decide next week whether to start accession negotiations with Turkey.

“Certainly if Turkey becomes an EU member and implements all the
requirements, meets the criteria, that would mean Turkey would be a
much more open society,” he said.

“Armenia would like to see the open border issue… be raised by the
European Union more assertively, more loudly, even more aggressively,
because this is an important issue also for the European Union,”
Oskanyan added.

Armenia says 1.5 million of its people died between 1915 and 1923 in
a systematic genocide and says the decision to carry it out was taken
by the political party then in power in the Ottoman Empire, popularly
known as the Young Turks.

Turkey denies genocide and relations with Armenia have been tense
ever since. Their border is closed because of Armenia’s occupation of
part of Azerbaijan including the ethnic Armenian enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh.

Oskanyan said recognition of the genocide was still on Yerevan’s
foreign policy agenda, and he hoped Turkish accession to the EU would
help achieve it.

“In the case of EU accession we hope it will lead to much freer
discourse within the country which eventually may lead to
recognition.”

Oskanyan said if EU membership forced Turkey to open the border, it
would facilitate trade and boost the economy in poor eastern regions
of Turkey as well as in Armenia.

“Turkey’s foreign policy should be in line with Brussels,” he said.
“That means Turkey cannot have closed borders with its neighbours.”

NEW NEIGHBOURS

He added that Armenia had lost an estimated $1 billion in trade over
the last 10 to 15 years because of the closure, and the EU needed to
push for its reopening.

“After all Armenia, along with the other two Caucasus countries
(Azerbaijan and Georgia) is a member of the European Neighbourhood
Policy,” he said, referring to a new EU initiative to boost ties with
its closest neighbours.

“We have no border with any other EU or prospective EU member state,
Turkey is the only one. If they do not take that obligation, do not
rise to the occasion, the whole new neighbourhood policy will be
rendered obsolete, at least for Armenia.”

Armenia is also in dispute with its neighbour Azerbaijan over the
Nagorno-Karabakh region, wholly within Azerbaijan, populated mainly
by Christian ethnic Armenians, and which broke away from Azeri rule
as the Soviet Union collapsed. The two went to war over it following
the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Oskanyan said he was cautiously optimistic on progress towards peace
with Azerbaijan, after a difficult period when veteran Azeri leader
Haydar Aliyev died at the end of 2003 and was replaced by his son,
Ilham.

“The start was very difficult with the Azeris after the change of
players,” he said. “I guess both sides are beginning to warm up to
each other and that gives us some hope that we will be able to make
some progress.”