Serge Sargsyan: There is still a good chance for us to settle the
Nagorno-Karabakh issue diplomatically
armradio.am
08.12.2007 13:10
Armenian Prime Minister Serge Sargsyan will call next week on his EU
partners to step up pressure on Turkey to open the border between the
two countries.
`Turkey is not respecting its trade commitments with the EU, which
includes trade with Armenia,’ Serge Sargsyan said in a written
interview with European Voice ahead of his trip to Brussels on 11
December.
Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge that the Ottoman Empire committed
genocide against its Armenian citizens during the First World War has
prevented normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia, and
their border remains closed.
‘Armenia’s relations with neighboring Azerbaijan are tense over the
`frozen conflict’ in Nagorno Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave
inside Azeri territory held by Armenian forces since a war in the early
1990s. Both countries participate in the European Neighborhood Policy.
In a recent briefing, the International Crisis Group warned that
Azerbaijan was using revenue from its burgeoning oil industry to
re-equip its military and that the war over Nagorno-Karabakh could
reignite,’ the European Voice writes.
`I’m certain that there is still a good chance for us to settle the
Nagorno-Karabakh issue diplomatically,’ Sargsyan said. `We are and
always will be neighbors. We cannot remain enemies forever.’