TURKEY: WE ARE NOT A PART NOR A SIDE IN NAGORNO TALKS
News.am
20:07 / 10/07/2009
"We are not a part nor a side in the Nagorno talks, but we would
welcome any progress towards a comprehensive solution between Armenia
and Azerbaijan," a Turkish government official in Ankara said,
Reuters reads.
Armenia and Turkey, at loggerheads since the World War One mass
killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, plan to sign a protocol in
Zurich committing them to re-establish diplomatic ties and reopen
their common border. In the latest diplomatic round, two days before
the Swiss ceremony, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will hold
new talks on Karabakh in Moldova’s capital Chisinau on Thursday.
"There are intensified efforts … to make sure that at some point,
relatively soon, there will be something from the Karabakh process
that could help the Turkish-Armenian process move forward," a senior
European diplomat told Reuters. But, speaking on condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity surrounding the talks, the European diplomat
added that he did not expect any major announcement in Moldova, saying:
"I think it’s going to take longer than that."
The senior European diplomat, asked about the chances of Turkey
opening the border as planned by year-end, without progress on
Nagorno-Karabakh, replied: "Fairly slim."
Reuters also amplifies the current situation in Armenia-Turkey
relations.
Armenia and Turkey are due to sign historic accords ending a century
of hostility on Saturday but a simmering territorial dispute could
yet complicate their plans, diplomats said.
Officially, the Azeri-Armenia talks on Karabakh are separate from
the Turkey-Armenia rapprochement. In reality they are closely linked
because Turkey has close cultural ties with Muslim Azerbaijan and
closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan
over the Karabakh war.