ARMENIA-TURKEY RAPPROCHEMENT WILL ENCOURAGE ARMENIANS: FREIZER

News.Am
Oct 23 2009
Armenia

Reestablishment of Armenia-Turkey diplomatic relations cannot proceed
from Yerevan’s deconstructive stance on Nagorno-Karabakh peace process,
said Sabine Freizer, Brussels-based Director of the Europe Program
of International Crisis Group.

Backpedaling of the process is caused by complexity of the issues,
the parties have to agree on.

"The Armenia-Turkey rapprochement will actually encourage the Armenians
to be more flexible in the negotiation with Azerbaijan," Freizer told
Azerbaijani Trend news agency.

The last meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents did not inspire
optimism, Azerbaijani FM Elmar Mammadyarov said. According to him,
Armenian side raised the issues that were agreed on as far back as
two-three years ago. Mammadyarov connects these actions with the recent
developments in the region, that is Armenia-Turkey reconciliation.

"According to Freizer, the Armenians main argument for retaining
control over the occupied territories is because they say "We need
to have these territories as a security guarantee. We feel isolated
and we need these territories to protect ourselves", the article reads.

"Once the border with Turkey is open, that excuse will no longer be
valid. They will have access to the rest of the world. And thus they
will no longer be able to say that they need all these territories
as security guarantees," Freizer underlined, adding that the Karabakh
status is one of the main unsettled issues. The reason why Azerbaijan
and Armenia have been unable to agree to a kind of compromise is that
they are still dealing with issues that extremely difficult to resolve.

"The two sides seem to have agreed on above mentioned. I would hope
that the sides could sign a document that at least puts into writing
these significant issues the parties agreed upon," Freizer concluded.