ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
July 6, 2007 Friday 06:06 PM EST

Armenia ready to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey

Armenia is ready to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey
without preconditions and “sign a relevant agreement already
tomorrow”, Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakosyan said.

“We are ready to begin economic cooperation and solve problems,
including historical ones, through this cooperation after
establishing normal contacts,” the diplomat said at the
Russian-Armenian (Slavic) University on Friday.

He believes the fact that there are no official relations between
Yerevan and Ankara is “strange” because “Turkey recognised Armenia
immediately after it had proclaimed independence, but did not
establish diplomatic relations with it over the subsequent 16
years,” the deputy foreign minister said.

“The Armenian-Turkish border remains closed today, and there are no
direct trade relations between the two countries,” Kirakosyan said.

He believes these are the “vestiges of the Cold War and the iron
curtain”.

According to U.S. economic experts, Armenia loses 300-400 million
U.S. dollars annually due to the closed border and indirect trade
with Turkey.

Turkey believes that diplomatic relations can be established only
after the occupied Azerbaijani territories have been returned and the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been resolved, as well as if Armenia
gives up its attempts to secure international recognition of Armenian
genocide in the Ottoman empire in 1915.

As a member of the United Nations and the Organisation for Security
and Cooperation in Europe, Turkey has to maintain equal relations
with the parties to the conflict and all countries in the regions,
Kirakosyan said.

“Armenia will continue the policy of achieving the recognition of
genocide by the international community and international
organisations. The republic considers genocide a fact of history and
has no right to give up the policy of genocide recognition and can’t
do it for moral reasons,” the diplomat said.

Armenia and Turkey maintain unofficial relations. Any Armenian
citizen can travel to Turkey through Georgia. Four flights are made
from Yerevan to Istanbul every week, and there is bus service.
Bilateral trade turnover through third countries, mainly through
Georgia, is about 100 million U.S. dollars a year.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress