RUSSIA URGES TURKEY AND ARMENIA TO CEMENT TIES
By Hasmik Lazarian

Reuters
Jan 14 2010
UK

YEREVAN, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Russia on Thursday urged Armenia and
Turkey to move ahead with an historic rapprochement and Yerevan said
it hoped Ankara was not blocking ratification of their deal to end
a century of hostility.

Turkey and Armenia, their relations haunted by the World War One mass
killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, agreed in October last year
to establish diplomatic ties and reopen their land border closed by
Ankara in 1993.

But the accords need parliamentary ratification, a step Turkey says
depends on Armenia making concessions in the festering conflict
with Turkish ally Azerbaijan over the breakaway mountain region of
Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia, Russia’s strategic and economic ally in the South Caucasus,
rejects the link, and won the backing of Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov.

"To try and artificially link those two issues is, in my opinion,
not correct," Lavrov told reporters in Yerevan after meeting his
Armenian counterpart, Edward Nalbandian.

"We are interested in this relationship normalising. The sooner that
happens, the better for the whole region."

Rapprochement, backed by the West and Russia, would bring big economic
benefits to poor, landlocked Armenia, while Turkey would burnish its
credentials as a potential EU entry state and boost its clout in the
Caucasus, a region criss-crossed by pipelines carrying oil and gas
to the West.

But analysts say Turkey is worried over the angry backlash from
fellow Muslim ally Azerbaijan, with the two bogged down in protracted
negotiations over the price of Azeri gas supplies.

Azerbaijan is being courted by Russia and the West for its energy
reserves in the Caspian Sea, and is one of Europe’s main hopes to
supply gas for the planned Nabucco pipeline.

To soothe Azeri concerns, Turkey says it wants progress in talks
between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, where Christian
ethnic Armenians threw off Azeri rule with Armenian backing in the
early 1990s.

Turkey closed the frontier with Armenia in solidarity with Azerbaijan
during the war, which killed 30,000 people.

Armenia’s Nalbandian said: "I don’t want to have the impression,
and I think the international community also does not, that Turkey
is specially blocking ratification of the protocols."

"What’s a reasonable timeframe? It’s not dragging out and not creating
artificial barriers."

A trio of Russian, French and American mediators intensified
negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2009, but analysts say there
is little sign of concrete progress. (Writing by Matt Robinson in
Tbilisi; Editing by Matthew Jones)