TURKISH BORDERS WITH ARMENIA WILL REMAIN CLOSED PENDING KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT

WPS Agency
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
April 22, 2009 Wednesday
Russia

The previous week was a week of visits, summits, and frustrated
hopes for Armenia. Political scientists expected the long-awaited
agreement to open the Armenian-Turkish border from the meeting of the
Council of Foreign Ministers of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation
Organization in Yerevan (some even said it would happen on April 16)
but their hopes proved to be vain. Not even the pressing agenda or
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan’s presence in Yerevan helped.

As a matter of fact, that these optimistic forecasts would be
frustrated had been clear even since before Babacan’s visit to
Armenia. Flying to Yerevan, foreign minister of the country that
had closed its border with Armenia in 1993 said that he was counting
on a comprehensive settlement of the relations with Armenia and on
their normalization. He added, however, that normalization of the
relations between Ankara and Yerevan should proceed simultaneously
with the Azerbaijani-Armenian negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh.
From: Baghdasarian