The chief of the foreign relations department of the Azerbaijani Presidency urges Ankara not to repeat the 2009 ‘mistake’ of attempting to open borders with Armenia.
A senior Azeri official has urged Turkey not to repeat the 2009 “mistake” of attempting to open borders with Armenia, underlining that they are suspicious of similar efforts to revive the stalled process between Ankara and Yerevan.
“There are such attempts [for the revival of the Ankara-Yerevan process] these days. I am hopeful and sure that the Turkish leadership will not take steps contrary to the will of Azerbaijanand the Azerbaijani people,” Novroz Mammadov, chief of the foreign relations department of the Azerbaijani Presidency, told the Hürriyet Daily News in an interview.
Without further elaborating on what these attempts were, Mammadov said he was talking about “possibilities” rather than concrete moves.
Approached by the Daily News, Turkish diplomatic sources said there were no intentions for the revival of the reconciliation process and that Turkey’s position vis-à-vis the Nagorno-Karabkh issue had not changed.
“A step was taken in 2009. An agreement was signed between Turkey and Armenia under the monitoring of six foreign ministers. It was not possible to implement this agreement because it was unfair,” Mammadov said. “We do not want it to occur a second time.”
“We are grateful for Turkey’s support to Azerbaijan with regard to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. We are regretful because of the failure of the international community’s efforts to resolve the problem since the early 1990s,” he said.
President İlham Aliyev’s adviser underlined that Baku was not in fact against Turkey opening its borders with Armenia but that such a move should follow a step taken by Yerevan with regard to Nagorno-Karabakh.
