OSCE MG: Turkey-Armenia thaw shouldn't be linked to Karabakh

May 20, 2009 - 20:57 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey should not link its efforts to normalize ties with Armenia to a settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, a French negotiator said on Wednesday.



Ankara and Yerevan have been engaged for months in high-level talks aimed at establishing diplomatic relations after a century of hostility and last month announced a "road map" to reopen their borders.



But after Turkey's Muslim ally Azerbaijan condemned the reconciliation moves, Ankara said there will be no progress until the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is resolved.





Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan promised Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev during a visit to Baku that Turkey will not open the border with Armenia unless the Karabakh problem is settled.



"Normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations and the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh dispute are two separate processes which should continue in parallel but along their own paths," the French Embassy in Ankara said in a statement after a visit earlier this week by Bernard Fassier, a Co-chair of the Minsk Group.
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