Turkey not to open border with Armenia unless Karabakh issue solved -PM

ANKARA. April 11. KAZINFORM The Turkish-Armenian border will not be opened unless the Nagorno-Karabakh problem is resolved, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said, Kazinform refers to ITAR-TASS.

?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. 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?, Kazinform cites ITAR-TASS. See www.itar-tass.com for full version.