Pierre Lellouche: Turks have everything to gain by opening border with Armenia

PanARMENIAN.Net - French Minister for European Affairs Pierre Lellouche said that the Karabakh conflict resolution is mainly stalled by internal politics.

“And we encourage the press, and local politicians – on one hand the Turkish side and on the other the Armenian side. We very much supported President Gul’s football diplomacy with Armenia. We saw, there was an agreement. Then, sadly, the agreement was not ratified. We very much want these countries to reach a solution through negotiation.

It’s the same for Azerbaijan, which has a real economic potential. They must admit there are refugees, and find solutions,” the French Minister for European Affairs said.

Answering the question if Turkey’s efforts can help resolve this situation, Pierre Lellouche said: “I have been asking them to open the land frontier for a long time. You know that the air frontier is open. And the Turks have everything to gain by opening the border with Armenia, by not cutting this country off. So I hope that Turkey will do this, but of course it’s difficult, when many refugees remain in Azerbaijan, and they have religious and ethnic affinities with them,” Euronews reported.

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