Turkey’s Erdogan again rules out open border

Visits Baku to reassure ally

Published: Thursday May 14, 2009

Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, Baku, May 13, 2009. Photolure

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Yerevan - In a trip to Baku this week, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised that his country would not open its border with Armenia while the Karabakh conflict remains unresolved.

"There is a cause and effect relation here. Occupation of Karabakh is the cause here and closing of the border is the effect. It is impossible for us to open the border unless that occupation ends," Mr. Erdogan told a joint news conference with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, Reuters reported from Baku on May 13.

Mr. Erdogan's announcement was consistent with a statement he made in Germany on April 19. "If the Armenian occupation of Azeri territory continues, Turkey will not open its border gate," he had announced in Germany.

But Mr. Erdogan's declaration in Baku was his first announcement on the topic since the release, on April 22, of a joint statement by the foreign ministries of Turkey and Armenia, which claimed that the "two parties have achieved tangible progress and mutual understanding" in the process of normalizing their bilateral relations.

Mr. Erdogan was in Baku to ease Azerbaijan's concerns over such indications that Ankara was ready to end its longstanding hostility toward Armenia. Baku has long sought Ankara's support in isolating Armenia as a way of pressuring it to make concessions over Karabakh.