EUROPEAN EXPERT: TURKEY SHOULD OPEN BORDERS WITH ARMENIA AND ARMENIA SHOULD RETURN THE REGIONS AROUND NAGORNO KARABAKH TO AZERBAIJAN
ArmInfo
2009-08-10 12:00:00
ArmInfo. Turkey should open the borders with Armenia and Armenia
should achieve a tangible progress in settlement of the conflict with
Azerbaijan, especially as regards the regions around Nagorno Karabakh,
leading consultant at the European Council on Foreign Relations Nicu
Popesku told ArmInfo.
According to him, it is important for Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan to
achieve a certain progress in solution of the issues among them. ‘Any
achievement of agreement in this region should be a package one that
will give guarantees to all the parties. Moreover, all the parties
will have to make concessions, as well as prepare their public for
a dialogue. It will be difficult to achieve this, however, stability
will not be stable without this’, the European expert said.
Talking about the prospect of the Armenian-Turkish relations, he
said it is available. ‘The parties shaped their course in the right
direction. I hope the strained situation in the Armenian-Azerbaijani
and Armenian-Turkish relations will gradually come to naught due to
the economic cooperation and openness among the parties’, N. Popescu
said. He added that the political, historical and psychological
problems, and well as the problems related to security in the
Armenian-Turkish relations will not be solved in a night, however,
creation of opportunities for the economic cooperation will allow to
smoothen the discrepancies in other aspects of the complex bilateral
relations in due course.
‘Perhaps, it will take several decades’, the expert said. Moreover,
he said that Turkey and Armenia have to prepare their public for a
dialogue. ‘This process cannot be continuously held in secret.
Revival of relations cannot be stable even in the medium term without
the public support’, N. Popescu resumed.