ARMENIA BLOCKS TURKISH ELECTION OBSERVERS

Agence France Presse — English
May 7, 2007 Monday 3:59 PM GMT

Armenia said on Monday it had refused visas to eight Turkish election
observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe
who were due to monitor parliamentary polls.

"We do not consider it proper that Turkish representatives carry out
monitoring in Armenia… due to the lack of diplomatic relations,"
between the two countries, foreign ministry spokesman Vladimir
Karapetyan told AFP.

The two neighbours have no diplomatic relations and their common
border has remained closed for more than a decade.

They have fundamental differences over the mass killings of Armenians
by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I as well as Turkey’s
support for Azerbaijan in an Armenian-Azeri war in the early 1990s.

Armenia, an ex-Soviet state in the Caucasus mountains, holds
parliamentary elections on Saturday.

A top official at the Vienna-based OSCE said Monday that he was
concerned about Armenia’s decision.

"Preventing some observers from participating contradicts the
principles of transparency and objectivity which are an indispensable
aspect of democratic elections," OSCE director for democratic
institutions Christian Strohal said in a statement.