Armenia for membership of Turkey in EU, says Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia

Arminfo, Yerevan, 28/6/2005

He says Armenia is more interested in further integration of Turkey into Europe, however the Turkey deserving membership in EU is in question. In this case, in 15-20 years Armenia will be the first to support Turkey in its aspiration for Europe, the deputy Minister says. He pointed out the great importance of the fact that the Armenian community in Turkey must be able to speak of the Armenian Genocide, its religion and to speak in its native language freely. The Armenian Foreign Ministry welcomes all the initiatives able to assist in covering both internal tasks of the countries neighboring Armenia and the bilateral relations. Proclaimed independent, Armenia has been waging a policy of open doors with respect to its neighbors and Turkey is not an exception, the deputy Minister says. He added the repeated statements of Armenia to establish diplomatic relations with Ankara without any preliminary conditions aspiring to ensure the positive participation of Turkey in the South Caucasus. Gharibjanyan expressed regret that Turkey was not ready to establish objective and balanced relations will all the states. Turkey continues the policy of ousting Armenia from regional program.

Gegham Gharibjanyan also says that Armenia welcomes the positive trends observed in the public and political circles such as broader discussion of banned topics in Turkey, exchange of journalists, cultural events, inter-university cooperation. However, all this must be a precondition for normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations and not replace them.

As regards the blockade of the Armenian-Turkish border, the deputy Minister says that this border is not just a border with a neighboring-state for Armenia, it is a border with NATO and maybe with EU in future. In this light, the border is blocked for the whole region.