TURKISH PREMIERE SAYS BORDER TO OPEN AFTER KARABAKH SETTLEMENT

Yerkir
19.04.2010 13:21
Yerevan

Yerevan (Yerkir) – Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
has told Turkish media that Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan had
proposed not to link process of settlement to the Karabakh conflict
with process of the Armenia-Turkey reconciliation and issue of border’s
opening with Armenia.

"And I responded to this by a short question, I asked him what was the
reason for closing the border in 1993? I reminded him that the border
was closed because of occupation of the Azerbaijani territories, and
until this reason is eliminated, the Armenia-Turkey documents will
not be adopted by Turkey’s Parliament," 1NewsAgency quoted Erdogan
as saying.

Erdogan said that in order to ratify the protocols on normalisation of
relations with Armenia, it’s necessary that all the political forces
of Turkey to reach a consensus view on the issue.

"I think if the Karabakh issues to be solved, then neither problem
will rise in the process of opening of the Armenia-Turkey border. So
the Minsk Group should activate its work. I discussed the issue in
Washington with Presidents Obama of the Unites States and Medvedev
of Russia as well as with Sarcozy during my visit to Paris. However,
they can’t reach results in the process for 20 years," said Erdogan.