NEGOTIATIONS OF ARMENIAN AND TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTERS BRING NO PROGRESS TO THE COUNTRIES’ RELATIONS
ArmInfo
2007-06-26 16:17:00
Foreign Minister of Turkey Abdullah Gul said Armenia should work
to resolve its territorial disputes with neighboring Azerbaijan,
suggesting that this would help the landlocked country to resolve
its problems with Turkey, too.
Zaman reports that Gul made the suggestion at a rare meeting with
Vartan Oskanian, the Armenian foreign minister, on the sidelines
of a meeting of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) in
Istanbul. Neighbors Turkey and Armenia have no formal ties due to
disputes over Yerevan’s support for Armenian diaspora efforts worldwide
to win international recognition for the genocide of Armenians at
the hands of the Ottoman Empire as well as due to the "continuing
occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan,
by Armenian forces." Turkey also refuses to open its border gate with
Armenia, closed "following Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh in
the past decade, unless there is an improvement in Armenia’s stance."
Oskanian said at the closed-door meeting with Gul that Armenia wanted
to improve ties with Turkey and stressed that the reopening of the
border would help mend fences, a Turkish diplomat close to the talks
said. Gul, however, responded that Armenia should work to resolve
the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
"We also expect some gestures from you," the diplomat quoted Gul
as saying, in reference to a Turkish proposal to set up a joint
committee of Turkish and Armenian academics to study the genocide
allegations. At a press conference following his talks with Gul,
Oskanian expressed disappointment at the lack of progress. He
said unlike leaders of the rest of other member countries of BSEC,
Armenian President Robert Kocharian declined to come to Istanbul to
attend the 12-nation organization’s 15th anniversary summit because
there were no diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia.
He noted that Kocharian had come to Turkey when he first came to
power in 1998, to attend a meeting of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) because he then had high hopes for
peace and progress.
"Unfortunately there has been no change since then," he told the
conference.
Oskanian reiterated that Armenia had no precondition for improvement of
relations with Turkey but complained that Turkey had clear conditions
to take any step in this direction. The Armenian foreign minister
criticized Turkish conditions to open the border gate and claimed
that they were not "justifiable."