Agence France Presse — English
January 19, 2007 Friday
Armenia wants open border with Turkey
YEREVAN, Jan 19 2007
Armenia’s defence minister joined calls on Friday for the border
between his country and Turkey to be reopened as a step towards
normalising relations.
"I support this and I think that in the near future (the closure)
will change. I think that relations need to be established with
Turkey without any preconditions," Defence Minister Serzh Sargasian
told journalists in the Armenian capital Yerevan.
The 355-kilometre (221-mile) border was closed in 1993 at the height
of the Nagorno Karabakh war in which ethnic-Armenian separatists in
Azerbaijan took over almost a fifth of Azeri territory.
Armenia fully backed the separatists, while Turkey gave diplomatic
support to Azerbaijan.
Armenia and Turkey are also in a dispute over Turkey’s refusal to
agree with Armenia that mass killings by Ottoman Turks of ethnic
Armenians in 1915-1917 constituted genocide.
Sargasian, who is considered likely to run for president in 2008,
echoed comments made Thursday by the deputy foreign minister, Gegam
Garibdzhanian, that "Armenia is ready to open the border with
Turkey."
Last weekend, business and political delegates at a Turkish-Armenian
conference in Yerevan said that opening the border would increase
Turkey’s access to the Turkic-speaking countries of Central Asia,
where Ankara has sought a greater role since the Soviet Union’s 1991
collapse.
They said it would also increase trade and boost tourism. Armenians
visit Turkey on holiday in large numbers, despite the lack of
diplomatic ties.
Ankara recognised Armenia’s independence in 1991 but the two sides
did not establish diplomatic ties. Turkey’s drive to join the
European Union has drawn greater attention to its relationship with
its eastern neighbour in the strategic Caucasus region.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
