TURKEY’S ERDOGAN: ARMENIA SHOULD COMPLY WITH UN RESOLUTION

Sept 4 2008
Turkey

Turkish PM Erdogan said he thinks favorably about President Abdullah
Gul’s decision to travel to Armenia.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday he thinks
favorably about President Abdullah Gul’s decision to travel to Armenia
on the occasion of a soccer game between the national teams of the
two countries.

Armenia and Turkey will play against each other in the Armenian
capital Yerevan on September 6th in the 2010 FIFA World Cup
qualifiers. Armenian President Serzh Sargsian declared that he would
take steps to revive relations with Turkey and invited President Gul
to Yerevan to watch together the soccer game.

Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic or economic relations since
Armenia declared its independence in 1991 and Turkey closed its border
with Armenia after this country invaded the Upper-Karabakh region of
Azerbaijan in 1992.

"You can not get anything as long as you leave the table. You should
sit down at the table and let others leave," Erdogan told reporters
in Syria where he met leaders of Syria, France and Qatar at a quartet
summit on the Middle East.

"They (the two presidents) would of course discuss something after
the game," Erdogan said. "The whole thing here is the Upper-Karabakh
issue. We think that the Minsk process should be concluded in a
fair way. Moreover, Armenia should comply with UN Security Council
resolution on the matter."

Minsk Process and Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) aim to find a political solution to
the conflict over Upper-Karabakh region over which Armenia fought
Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s.

On July 24th, Turkish FM Ali Babacan expressed Turkey’s willingness to
normalize relations with Armenia at a press conference in New York,
saying that Turkey also wanted to create an atmosphere of dialogue
with Armenia.

Erdogan also said that Babacan would travel to Armenia together with
President Gul, adding that second round of these talks would continue
between foreign ministers of the two countries.

"Everything can not be finalized in a minute. It will take time,"
Erdogan said.