BORDER WILL NOT BE OPENED ANYTIME SOON

A1+
April 21, 2009

There will not be opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, at least
not this year, according to President of the Union of Politicians of
Armenia Hmayak Hovhannisyan.

"I firmly believe that the border will not be opened until the end of
the year. Serzh Sargsyan’s states that if the border is not opened
in the fall, it will be opened after the football match; if not,
by the end of the year it will definitely be opened. I don’t think
that this is realistic," told "A1+" Hmayak Hovhannisyan.

According to the politician, Turkey will not open the border until
the end of the Kars-Akhalkalak-Tbilisi-Baku railway construction and
will not allow that project to lose meaning.

"It is a geopolitical project opening a pathway between East and
West. After the implementation of that project and the opening of
the Turkish-Armenian border, the Kars-Gyumri railway will no longer
be of strategic importance and can’t be competitive. The opening
of the border will only make us rely on the same roads and the
railway will lose its potential for communications," said Hmayak
Hovhannisyan. Besides that, Hovhannisyan views an issue with Russian
border-guards.

Hmayak Hovhannisyan also ties the Turkish-Armenian talks with Levon
Ter-Petrosyan’s return to politics.

"As Ali Babacan stated recently, talks on the normalization of
Turkish-Armenian ties had begun in the fall of 2007. He also said
that the Armenian side insisted on keeping the talks confidential. I
don’t consider this by chance."

Hmayak Hovhannisyan recalled the speech made by Levon Ter-Petrosyan
on September 21, 2007 when he discussed his approaches on the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and other regional conflicts, courses for
overcoming the isolation of Armenia from regional projects and attached
importance to the need to open the Turkish-Armenian border. The secret
talks began right after that in Switzerland. Knowing that those issues
would be of importance after the return of Ter-Petrosyan, it was in
his interest to take the initiative of starting the talks and try to
deprive Ter-Petrosyan of playing a role in that geopolitical game.