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Russia Urges Turkey And Armenia To Cement Ties

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  • Russia Urges Turkey And Armenia To Cement Ties

    RUSSIA URGES TURKEY AND ARMENIA TO CEMENT TIES
    By Hasmik Lazarian

    Reuters
    Jan 14 2010
    UK

    YEREVAN, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Russia on Thursday urged Armenia and
    Turkey to move ahead with an historic rapprochement and Yerevan said
    it hoped Ankara was not blocking ratification of their deal to end
    a century of hostility.

    Turkey and Armenia, their relations haunted by the World War One mass
    killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, agreed in October last year
    to establish diplomatic ties and reopen their land border closed by
    Ankara in 1993.

    But the accords need parliamentary ratification, a step Turkey says
    depends on Armenia making concessions in the festering conflict
    with Turkish ally Azerbaijan over the breakaway mountain region of
    Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Armenia, Russia's strategic and economic ally in the South Caucasus,
    rejects the link, and won the backing of Russian Foreign Minister
    Sergei Lavrov.

    "To try and artificially link those two issues is, in my opinion,
    not correct," Lavrov told reporters in Yerevan after meeting his
    Armenian counterpart, Edward Nalbandian.

    "We are interested in this relationship normalising. The sooner that
    happens, the better for the whole region."

    Rapprochement, backed by the West and Russia, would bring big economic
    benefits to poor, landlocked Armenia, while Turkey would burnish its
    credentials as a potential EU entry state and boost its clout in the
    Caucasus, a region criss-crossed by pipelines carrying oil and gas
    to the West.

    But analysts say Turkey is worried over the angry backlash from
    fellow Muslim ally Azerbaijan, with the two bogged down in protracted
    negotiations over the price of Azeri gas supplies.

    Azerbaijan is being courted by Russia and the West for its energy
    reserves in the Caspian Sea, and is one of Europe's main hopes to
    supply gas for the planned Nabucco pipeline.

    To soothe Azeri concerns, Turkey says it wants progress in talks
    between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, where Christian
    ethnic Armenians threw off Azeri rule with Armenian backing in the
    early 1990s.

    Turkey closed the frontier with Armenia in solidarity with Azerbaijan
    during the war, which killed 30,000 people.

    Armenia's Nalbandian said: "I don't want to have the impression,
    and I think the international community also does not, that Turkey
    is specially blocking ratification of the protocols."

    "What's a reasonable timeframe? It's not dragging out and not creating
    artificial barriers."

    A trio of Russian, French and American mediators intensified
    negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2009, but analysts say there
    is little sign of concrete progress. (Writing by Matt Robinson in
    Tbilisi; Editing by Matthew Jones)
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