Armenia border won’t be opened until Karabakh retreat: Turkish FM

GANJA, Azerbaijan

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu held a joint press conference with his Azerbaijani and Georgian counterparts. AA Photo

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has refuted reports that suggested Turkey would soon open its borders with Armenia during the annual Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia tripartite meeting in the Azerbaijani city of Ganja.

“As long as the occupied lands are not free and the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is not solved in this frame, a complete normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations is not possible. The opening of borders is also an issue that should be seen in this frame,” Davutoğlu said.

Davutoğlu held a joint press conference with his Azerbaijani and Georgian counterparts after the tripartite meeting, which touched on enhancing regional cooperation on the issues of common interest to all three countries and reviving decisions made in previous meetings.

Armenian-backed separatists took Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives. A 1994 cease-fire ended major hostilities, but no peace accord has been reached, and clashes regularly erupt. About 20 troops from either side have been killed on their frontier in the past year.