TURKEY INSISTS ON KARABAKH LINKAGE FOR ARMENIA TIES

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Apr 19, 2010

Turkey — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of
parliament from his ruling AK Party in Ankara,

Turkey has again reiterated its long-standing linkage between the
ratification of its fence-mending agreements with Armenia and a
resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict acceptable to Azerbaijan.

"We shut the [Turkish-Armenian] border because of the occupation of
Azeri soil," Turkish Prime Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying
by the Anatolia news agency on Sunday in a report cited by Agence
France Presse.

"The occupation should end so that Turkey can easily open its [border]
gates. But if the occupation continues, we will not take such a step,"
he said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Monday dismissed some
Armenian pro-government politicians’ suggestions that Ankara might
open the frontier without ratifying the Turkish-Armenian protocols.

"It is out of question for Turkey to open its border gate without
the ratification of the protocols," he said, according to Anatolia.

Davutoglu was speaking at a news conference in Ankara ahead of his
visit to Azerbaijan, Turkey’s closest regional ally strongly opposed
to the unconditional normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations.

The remarks by Erdogan are a further indication that he and Armenian
President Serzh Sarkisian failed to make further progress in the
normalization process at their talks held in Washington last week. The
lack of such progress made a unilateral Armenian pullout from the
agreements more likely.

Still, Davutoglu insisted that the dramatic Turkish-Armenian
rapprochement, which began two years ago, is not over. "We are positive
on the process and we have full confidence that in the end it will
lead us to a point," he said.