ARMENIAN FM URGES TURKEY TO ESTABLISH NORMAL RELATIONS WITHOUT PRECONDITIONS
Arminfo
19 Apr 07
Yerevan, 19 April: Armenia had proposed to Turkey, Azerbaijan and
Georgia to use the railway Kars-Gyumri-Akhalkalaki, promising that
Armenia would neither charge transit free and nor use the railway to
transport its own goods. However, Ankara and Baku turned down the
proposal, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan has said when
addressing the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna.
"It is strange that these countries are ready to spend up to 1bn
dollars to implement a project bypassing Armenia when an existing
railway is standing idle," he said. Turkey spares no efforts to expand
Armenia’s blockade, and the construction of the Kars-Tbilisi-Baku
railway is evidence of this, Oskanyan said.
Despite the fact that "after the cease-fire was signed, Azerbaijan
and its ally Turkey expected that in the condition of total blockade
Armenia would collapse under the weight of poverty and economic
stagnation, the republic continues to develop dynamically," Oskanyan
said.
"Let me repeat, the implementation of such programmes will not isolate
Armenia or do more harm than the blockade, but it will promote the
country’s alienation," he said, adding that the political environment
in the region would suffer. He went on to say that Armenia would
continue advocating the use of Kars-Gyumri-Akhalkalaki railway and
would demand that the Armenian-Turkish border be opened and that
relations with Ankara be normalized.
Oskanyan stressed once again that Armenia did not put forward
preconditions for normalizing relations with Ankara and expected the
same from Turkey. "The Armenian-Turkish border is the last closed
border in Europe. It needs to be open, so that Turkey can play a
positive role in the regional processes, including to the Karabakh
conflict settlement," he said.
Source: Arminfo, Yerevan, in Russian 0933 gmt 19 Apr 07