Armenian Foreign Minister accuses Turkey

YEREVAN

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian (L) speaks his US counterpart Hillary Clinton in Yerevan. REUTERS photo

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian accused Turkey for not being neutral in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, Armenian media reports said yesterday.

“20 years ago when Armenia was not against Turkish participation in the Minsk Group some countries hoped that Turkey would be objective and will assist settling the Nagorno Karabakh issue. But as the 20 years showed Turkey is not objective and also damaged the Nagorno-Karabakh issue’s settlement process, ” Times.am news website cited Nalbandyan as saying. Speaking at recent clashes along the border with Azerbaijan where the lives of soldiers from both sides were claimed, Nalbandian accused Turkey of “making racist statements.”

“[A] Turkish announcement [that] accorded they are troubled with the Azerbaijani victims has racist character. We have never heard from them to be troubled with the Armenian victims which Azerbaijani provocation causes,” said Nalbandyan speaking at a at a joint press conference with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Chairman-in-Office Eamon Gilmore on June 12. “When the international society condemns the bloody events and calls on a stop of the use of force Turkish announcements cause new provocations by Azerbaijan,” he said. Turkey and Armenia currently have no diplomatic relations, as Ankara closed its border with the country in 1993 because of its war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.