ARMENIA INSISTS ON BORDER OPENING FOR TURKEY VISIT DESPITE NO PROGRESS

July 29 2009
Turkey

Armania insists opening of border with Turkey despite any progress
between Baku and Yerevan.

Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan said on Tuesday he would only accept
an invitation to a football match in neighbouring Turkey on Oct. 14
if Ankara opens border.

Armania insists opening of border with Turkey despite any progress
between Baku and Yerevan.

Azerbaijan says "real steps on elimination of occupation" need to
be made before any kind of agreement with Armania and urges its main
ally Turkey to continue support.

"We expect to witness constructive steps soon, by which our colleagues
will try to provide a suitable environment for the return visit of
the Armenian president," Sarksyan told a news conference after meeting
his Serbian counterpart Boris Tadic.

"I will accept the invitation only in the event the agreements reached
are fulfilled, if we see real steps. I will go to Turkey if we already
have the border open or we are on the threshold of the blockade being
lifted," he said.

Sarksyan was invited to the return leg of the World Cup qualifying
tie between Turkey and Armenia when Turkish President Abdullah Gul
was in Yerevan last year to attend the first leg, the first visit to
Armenia by a Turkish leader.

The two countries announced a roadmap in April to normalise ties.

Turkey closed the frontier in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan,
which was fighting Armenia that occupied the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh
region.

Azerbaijan, a traditional Muslim ally of Turkey and supplier of oil
and gas to the West, reacted angrily to the thaw between Yerevan
and Ankara, prompting Turkey to say the roadmap would only come to
fruition with progress on the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh.