IF TURKEY OPENS BORDERS TODAY, IT WILL PUT ITSELF IN A DIFFICULT STATE, MP
Aliyah Fridman

news.az
Jan 13 2010
Azerbaijan

Asim Mollazade News.Az interviews Asim Mollazade, deputy of Azerbaijani
parliament and chairman of the Party of Democratic Reforms.

The Constitutional Court of Armenia recognized the Armenian-Turkish
protocols as valid. How do you assess the situation that established
in this respect?

The implementation of these protocols is very important for Armenia.

Therefore, the Constitutional Court mostly represented by Sargsyan’s
supporters is loyal to his policy. Today Armenia is in a desperate
search of the way out of this economic and social deadlock to which it
has driven itself. Therefore, these protocols are mostly salutary for
it. For this reason, we expected the Constitutional Court to ratify
them and pave way for the protocols to be submitted in the parliament
for ratification

How will Armenia behave in relation to Turkey? Yerevan is always
trying to push Ankara to accelerating the process of normalizing the
bilateral relations.

Yerevan will try to ratify the protocols in the parliament to present
this fact before Ankara saying Armenia has fulfilled everything and
it is now Turkey’s turn. In turn, Ankara should seriously ponder over
this step, because if Ankara opens the border before Armenia withdraws
from the occupied lands, it will put itself in a very difficult state.

It will lose its influence in the region and certainly, in this case
Azerbaijan will think about…

However, we want to believe that the prime minister, the speaker and
the chairman of the external ties committee of the Turkish parliament
will keep their promises to the Azerbaijani parliament and Azerbaijani
people. Therefore, I think Armenia must withdraw from the occupied
Azerbaijani lands. In this case there will appear a chance for
development, for stability and Yerevan will have an opportunity to
advance to turn from a military outpost into a normal country.

Does it mean that you do not believe Turkey will open borders with
Armenia without the settlement of the Karabakh conflict?

We would like to trust to the Turkish leadership and I think Armenia
should act in line with the international law. It should take steps
to withdraw its troops from the occupied lands and to settle the
conflict. Only in this case will Armenia be able to establish normal
relations with all its neighbors and have an opportunity to recover
from the deep economic and social crisis.