ARMENIA TO TURKEY OPEN OUR BORDER AND LET’S TALK
Reuters
Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates
June 25 2007
ISTANBUL – Armenia appealed to Turkey on Monday to open their shared
border, saying this was the essential first step for making any
progress on historical disputes that divide the two countries.
Turkey closed the border in 1993 to protest against Armenia’s
occupation of territory inside Azerbaijan, Ankara’s close Turkic ally.
Ties between Ankara and Yerevan have also been strained by Armenia’s
claim — backed by many other countries — that its people suffered
a systematic genocide at Ottoman Turkish hands in 1915. Turkey denies
any genocide took place.
‘First and foremost, to address the problematic issues between us,
we need as a bare minimum an open border between our two countries,’
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan told a news conference
in Istanbul.
‘This is how civilised countries operate … The only closed border
on the European continent today is that between Turkey and Armenia.’
But Oskanyan, in Istanbul for a meeting of the Black Sea Economic
Cooperation Organisation (BSEC), said his talks with Turkish Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul on Monday gave little ground for hope.
‘There is no change in the Turkish position,’ he said, adding that
Armenia hoped that after July 22 elections in Turkey a new government
might be ready to review the border policy.
Ankara says Armenia must first reach a peace settlement with Azerbaijan
over the disputed province of Karabakh, an enclave populated by ethnic
Armenians inside Azeri territory.
On the genocide issue, Turkey has proposed forming a joint commission
of Turkish, Armenian and other historians to investigate the events
of 1915 and to determine whether they constituted genocide.
Ankara acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians living in
Turkey were killed or deported during that period, but not in
a systematic genocide. It says many Muslim Turks also perished in
fierce inter-ethnic conflict as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Oskanyan said Armenia would consider taking part in such a commission
if the border were opened and normal diplomatic ties established
between the two countries.
But he also criticised the Turkish commission proposal, saying it was
an attempt to discourage parliaments around the world from recognising
the Armenian massacres as genocide.
Turkey fears the US Congress may in the coming months approve a
resolution recognising the killings as genocide, following the lead
of the European Parliament and legislatures in France, Russia, Greece,
Canada and many other countries.
In Turkey, asserting that there was an Armenian genocide is a crime.