Petition to open Turkish-Armenian border likely to fail: Oriental Studies Institute director

YEREVAN, January 15. /ARKA/. Ruben Safrastyan, the director of Armenian Institute of Oriental Studies, said Tuesday  the petition to call upon Turkey to open the borders with Armenia at least for the Syrian refugees is pretty unlikely to be successful. 

The activists petitioned Obama administration on the White House website to call the government of Turkey to open its border with Armenia for refugees from Syria. As of January 10, only 500 people signed the petition.

“Of course, I welcome any initiative which is targeted at supporting our Syrian compatriots. As to this particular initiative, I can say just 5 hundred people signed it whereas 25,000 signatures are required to be considered by the U.S. President,” Safrastyan said.

Moreover, the U.S. President will not even review this issue to avoid disputes with Turkey. And even if we presuppose the U.S. can make some pressure, Turkey will not fulfill the requirements.

“As a whole, such initiatives should be started after consulting with the Republic of Armenia. Afterwards the State itself should have been submitted the initiative,” the expert said.

Armenia and Turkey have no diplomatic relations. The border between the two countries was closed in 1993 at Ankara’s initiative. Relations between Armenia and Turkey remain tense because of Ankara’s biased stance on Karabakh problem and its painful reaction to Armenia’s efforts to obtain worldwide recognition of the Armenian Genocide. 

Process of normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations started in 2008 by the initiative of the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan. On October 10, 2009 Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Turkey signed two protocols in Zurich “On the regulation of diplomatic relations” and “On the development of mutual relations” which should have been ratified by the parliaments of both countries.

But on April 22, 2010 Sargsyan signed a decree on the termination of the process of ratification of Armenian-Turkish protocols announcing that Turkey is not ready to continue the launched process. Ratification process of documents by Turkish Parliament is frozen.-0-