Gul hasn't yet decided whether to visit Yerevan or not

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish President Abdullah Gul said yesterday that "Turkey wants good relations with its neighbors and stability in its region but sent a veiled message to Armenia that it should respect the territorial rights of neighboring Azerbaijan if it wants to be part of regional integration projects," Today's Zaman reports.



Turkey severed its ties and closed its border with Armenia in 1993 as a token of solidarity with Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.



Ankara also says the normalization of ties depends on Armenia's formal recognition of the current borders with Turkey and changing its policy of calling for worldwide recognition of the Armenian Genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.



Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has invited Gul to a World Cup qualifying match between the national soccer teams of the two countries due on September 6 and has called for dialogue to help the normalization of ties, saying this will be mutually beneficial. Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said last week that Turkish Foreign Ministry officials had talks with Armenian officials in Switzerland earlier this month. But the Foreign Ministry insisted that the talks did not mean a change in Turkey's policy.



Gul said yesterday he has not yet decided whether to visit Yerevan.



Gul is in Kars to attend a ceremony to inaugurate the construction of the Turkish part of a regional railway passing through Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The presidents of Azerbaijan and Georgia are also attending the inauguration ceremony.



Turkey has taken steps to deepen regional cooperation on energy, transportation and trade with Azerbaijan and Georgia. The planned Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will link the three countries and revive the historical Silk Road by connecting Central Asia and the Far East to Europe via Turkey.



Construction of the Georgian section of the railway, expected to begin service in 2011, began in last November. Gul had joined Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the inauguration ceremony. Some 1.5 million people and 6.5 million tons of cargo are expected to be transported via the railway in the first year following its launch. The project is estimated to cost $450 million.