ARMENIAN PRESIDENT INVITES HIS AZERI COUNTERPART TO THE OPENING OF ARMENIAN-TURKISH BORDER

The Messenger
Feb 15 2010
Georgia

Armenia’s President Serzh Sarkisian stated during a speech at Chatham
House in London on February 10 that he is planning to invite Azeri
counterpart Ilham Aliyev to the opening of the Turkish-Armenian
border. No exact or even approximate date was given for this however.

Sarkisian said that this event should serve as an example for the
whole region of how problems should be solved. He said that all
problems and conflicts can be resolved decently by using the same
method Turkey and Armenia have used, i.e. conducting negotiations and
facing reality. He added that the best way to resolve the Karabakh
conflict is to show the world that problems can be solved in this
way and their resolution can benefit the whole region.

He assured his audience that the normalisation of Armenian-Turkish
relations could prove the biggest investment of the last decade in
establishing peace and stability in the South Caucasus. On the basis of
this the Armenian side has agreed to move forward without precondition,
but if however Armenia discovers that its suspicions are correct and
Turkey simply wants to while away time and not normalise relations
it will be forced to suspend the process, threatened Sarkisian. He
admitted that the negotiations which led to this border opening were
very difficult because Ankara was trying to make leaving Karabakh a
precondition, however he said that connecting these two issues will
damage Armenian-Turkish relations and will not help resolve the
Karabakh conflict but regulating Turkish-Armenian relations could
contribute to the positive resolution of the Karabakh conflict.

We should add that Armenia is very much interested in the opening
of the Turkish-Armenian border and will try its best to convince
Ankara to make this step regardless of Turkish commitments to its
brotherly nation Azerbaijan. Most probably this is yet another knot
in the already complicated situation in the region.

The Azeri President has not so far responded to the Armenian
invitation.