ARMENIA – TURKEY RELATIONS

Messenger.ge
Nov. 26 2008
Georgia

The enthusiasm which followed the Turkish President’s September visit
to Yerevan is slowly fading. Armenian analysts mainly blame Turkey
for this.

The Turkish – Armenian border was closed and diplomatic relations
suspended in 1993. Turkey insists on the de-occupation of Karabakh and
the peaceful resolution of the conflict and on Armenia giving up its
claim for international recognition of the humanitarian catastrophe
of the beginning of the 20th century as a genocide.

On September 6 this year the Turkish President attended the football
World Cup qualifying match between the national teams of the two
countries in Yerevan and later visited his Armenian counterpart. Big
and serious plans were immediately drawn by Armenian politicians. They
expected prompt and direct results without any preconditions. The
new relationship was to start with the restoration of diplomatic
relations and the rehabilitation of the Karsi-Gumri railway. But as
yet none of these plans look likely to be fulfilled.

Armenian analyst Haik Demoian thinks that Turkey should give up
connecting the Karabakh issue with normalizing bilateral relations. He
also insists that anti-Armenian information activities in Turkey
should stop. These are also the positions of official Yerevan, and
recently Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian highlighted the
same approaches in the Hurriyt newspaper.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress