MINISTER: ARMENIA GATE WON’T BE OPENED UNLESS CONDITIONS MET
Today’s Zaman
May 26 2008
Turkey
Turkey will not open its border with neighboring Armenia, closed for
more than a decade, unless Yerevan resolves its problems with Ankara
and regional ally Azerbaijan, a government minister has said.
Economy Minister Mehmet Å~^imÅ~_ek, while attending a meeting on
regional development in the far eastern province of Igdır, located
near the border with Armenia, said Turkey, with its large purchasing
capacity of $950 billion, does not need economic ties with Armenia,
emphasizing that Armenia should be the one to take steps to normalize
its ties with Turkey. "We don’t need them, they need us. Turkey wants
good economic ties with its neighbors. If they see this fact and take
a step toward us, we will take a step toward them," Å~^imÅ~_ek said.
"We have no commercial or political dialogue with the Armenians
due to the problems caused by them. Opening of the border gate is
unfortunately not possible for the time being without Armenia resolving
its problems with Azerbaijan and changing its stance toward Turkey,"
Å~^imÅ~_ek, who was accompanied by Rıza Nur Meral, chairman of the
Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON), and a
200-strong delegation of investors and businessmen, said late Saturday.
Turkey severed its diplomatic ties and closed the border gate with
landlocked Armenia in the last decade, following Armenian occupation of
Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. The Armenian
occupation of the Azerbaijani territory has been maintained. Ankara
also refuses to normalize its relations with Yerevan because Armenia
seeks a worldwide recognition for claims that 1.5 million Armenians
were subject to genocide at the hands of the late Ottoman Empire
during World War I in eastern Anatolia and fails to declare that it
has no territorial claims on eastern Anatolia despite Turkish demands
to that effect.
Hopes for reconciliation between the two countries resurfaced when
President Abdullah Gul sent a congratulatory message to Serzh Sarkisian
following his election to power in February. Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan had also sent similar
messages to their Armenian counterparts following the establishment of
the new government in the neighboring country, expressing hopes for a
new era that will contribute to regional peace, stability and welfare.
But no visible progress has been achieved on the contentious
issues. Armenia rejected a 2005 call from Turkey to jointly examine
archives to find out what happened during World War I and Sarkisian
vowed in April to step up efforts for international recognition of
the genocide claims.
Å~^imÅ~_ek said trade with neighboring countries was vital for
the economy of the border provinces and lamented that Igdır and
neighboring Kars lagged behind compared to provinces located on borders
with other neighbors. He noted that the government would continue to
channel funds to regional development projects, supporting particularly
the agriculture and livestock sectors, and also emphasized that Mount
Agrı (Ararat) could become a tourist attraction.
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