US: Opening Turkey’s border with Armenia would bring benefits

ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

The United States believes there would be dramatic benefits of opening a border gate between Turkey and Armenia, although neighboring Azerbaijan is opponent of such a move, a top U.S. official has said.

“It seems to me that the opening of the border between Armenia and Turkey would benefit the peoples of both sides rather dramatically and rather quickly,” said Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, during a visit to the Armenian capital, Yerevan on Friday.

A day after, Armitage said in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev was opposing the idea, saying this would hamper efforts for a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan which is currently under Armenian occupation.

Last week, Aliyev complained that Turkey was coming under intense pressure to open its border gate with Armenia, closed for a decade.

Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, refuses to re-open the gate unless Armenian forces withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh. The United States and the European Union, which Turkey aspires to join, have called for the opening of the gate but Azerbaijan views the Turkish embargo on Armenia as a key part of its negotiating leverage.

Armenia and Azerbaijan are at odds over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, which Armenian forces seized from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. A 1994 cease-fire has largely held, but no final settlement has been reached.

In recent years, Turkey and Armenia have expanded business contacts.

In Yerevan, Armitage said that the United States has discussed the issue with Turkey.

“I think to be fair, our Turkish friends have had their hands full recently with concerns about northern Iraq and the ongoing Cyprus talks, but I hope as those concerns are ameliorated that they will be able to turn their attention to the reopening of the border,” Armitage said.

In Baku, he said Washington was worried over the prolongation of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. Events in Kosovo raise concerns that there could be clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh as well, he said.