ITAR-TASS , Russia
April 11 2009
Turkey not to open border with Armenia unless Karabakh issue solved -PM
11.04.2009, 06.00
ANKARA, April 11 (Itar-Tass) –The Turkish-Armenian border will not
be opened unless the Nagorno-Karabakh problem is resolved, Turkish
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said.
`Unless the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is resolved, we will not take any
steps towards opening the border with Armenia,’ the Ihlas news agency
quoted Erdogan as saying.
`Turkey will not sign the final agreement with Armenia unless
Azerbaijan and Armenia reach consensus on Nagorno-Karabakh,’ he said.
`We will prepare the infrastructure and do preliminary work, but this
[the opening of the border] will depend entirely on the settlement of
the Armenian-Azerbaijani problem. It has to be settled first,’ the
prime minister said.
The statement came as a response to local press reports saying that
the border with Armenia may be opened before the end of this month.
Some local observers believe that these reports cause tension between
Turkey and Azerbaijan, which is one of Ankara’s major partners in the
region.
The newspaper Hurriyet says Ankara has promised to Baku not to open
the border until the Karabakh issue was resolved.
It is believed that Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev refused to
attend the Alliance of Civilisations forum in Istanbul on April 6-7
because of a possible violation of Turkey’s promise.
Earlier on Friday, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said his country
was ready to establish normal relations with Turkey without
preconditions.
`The ball is in the Turkish court,’ Sargsyan said.
The president expressed hope that he would be able to `cross the open
Armenian-Turkish border’ when he travels to Istanbul in September for
a World Cup 2010 qualification football game between Armenia and
Turkey.
He is `deeply and sincerely convinced’ that Armenia `must establish
good relations with Turkey’, and this conviction did not develop after
his election as president.
Sargsyan believes that `such experienced diplomacy as the Turkish one
will assess the degree of sincerity’ of Armenian authorities in the
establishment of relations with Ankara without preconditions.
The president said talks with Turkey had `never discussed the problem
of Nagorno-Karabakh and the recognition of Armenian genocide’ by the
Ottoman Empire in 1915. `We do not condition normalisation of
relations between the two countries on Turkey’s recognition of
Armenian genocide and hope that the Turks do not consider the
termination of recognition of genocide [by different countries] as
such precondition’, he said.
At the same time, normalisation of relations with Turkey does not mean
questioning the fact of genocide in 1915, the president said. `We
regret millions of innocent victims and should do everything we can to
prevent such tragedies in the future,’ Sargsyan said.
The opening of the border with Turkey will not impede the Karabakh
settlement, but on ten contrary will facilitate it, he added.
`We may have made a mistake in our relations with Turkey’, and they
will take a totally different turn, Sargsayan said. But `even if it is
a failure’, Armenia will `come out of this process stronger because
the international community will see’ that Yerevan `is ready to
establish relations with Turkey without preconditions’.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began on February 22, 1988, when the
first direct confrontation occurred in the enclave after a big group
of Azeris had marched towards the Armenian-populated town of Askeran,
"wreaking destruction en route." A large number of refugees fled
Armenia and Azerbaijan as violence erupted against the minority
populations in the two countries. In the autumn of 1989, intensified
inter-ethnic conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh prodded the
Soviet government into granting Azerbaijani authorities greater leeway
in controlling the region. On November 29, 1989 direct rule in
Nagorno-Karabakh was ended and Azerbaijan regained control of the
region. However later a joint session of the Armenian parliament and
the top legislative body of Nagorno-Karabakh proclaimed the
unification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
On December 10, 1991, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh held a referendum,
boycotted by local Azeris, that approved the creation of an
independent state. A Soviet proposal for enhanced autonomy for
Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan satisfied neither side, and a
full-scale war subsequently started | between Azerbaijan and
Nagorno-Karabakh, the latter receiving support from Armenia.
The struggle over Nagorno-Karabakh escalated after both Armenia and
Azerbaijan obtained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In the
post-Soviet power vacuum, hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia
were heavily influenced by the Russian military, and both the Armenian
and Azerbajani military used a large number of mercenaries from
Ukraine and Russia.
By the end of 1993, the conflict had caused thousands of casualties
and created hundreds of thousands of refugees on both sides. By May
1994, the Armenians controlled 14 percent of the territory of
Azerbaijan. At that point, the Azerbaijani government for the first
time during the conflict recognised Nagorno-Karabakh as a third party
in the war and began direct negotiations with the Karabakh
authorities. As a result, an unofficial ceasefire was reached on May
12, 1994.
Despite the ceasefire, fatalities due to armed conflicts between
Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers continued. As of August, 2008, the
United States, France, and Russia (the co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk
Group) were attempting to negotiate a full settlement of the conflict,
proposing a referendum on the status of the area, which culminated in
Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh
Sargsyan travelling to Moscow for talks with Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev on 2 November 2008. As a result, the three presidents signed
an agreement that calls for talks on a political settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.