Interfax – Russia & CIS Military Newswire
Wednesday 7:20 PM MSK
Armenian deputy prime minister speaks of need to open Armenian-Turkish border
YEREVAN. July 17
Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Avinyan at a meeting with UN Under-Secretary-General Fekitomoeloa Katoa Utoikamanu spoke of the need to open the Armenian-Turkish border, the press service of the Armenian government announced on Wednesday.
At the meeting in New York, Avinyan invited the UN official to take practical steps to settle the issue of the closed border with Turkey, the report says.
Utoikamanu said she would study the issue, the press service said.
Avinyan also expressed concern about the construction of water reservoirs by Turkey using the water resources of the Aras border river. He said that in addition to having a negative impact on lands irrigated from the basin of the Aras this undermines to water and biological balance of the region.
In October 2009, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey in Zurich signed a protocol on the establishment of diplomatic relations and a protocol on the development of bilateral relations that were not ratified by the parliaments of the two countries.
On February 16, 2015 the then Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan informed parliament to revoke the Armenian-Turkish protocols from the legislative body.
Diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia were severed in 1993 at the initiative of Ankara over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The border between the two countries is closed.
In November 2018, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that Yerevan is ready for the settlement of relations with Ankara “without preliminary conditions.”
He spoke negatively of Turkey’s decision to close the border over the Karabakh conflict.
“This is a bad policy. If someone hopes that we can be threatened to accept some option of the conflict settlement, he is mistaken. We are ready for a negotiating process but I rule out the possibility that we will take any step under pressure, threats or the imposition of a blockade. On the contrary, we will only strengthen and consolidate and achieve the desired result,” Pashinyan said.
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