October 10, 2003 - 23:15 AMT
ARMENIAN-TURKISH DIALOGUE TO BE CONTINUED, ARMENIAN FM STATED
Armenia's dialogue with Turkey will be continued, as Armenian foreign minister Vardan Oskanian stated today addressing the forum held in the American University of Armenia, the topic of the forum being "The issues of opening the Armenian-Turkish border". As reported by Arminfo agency, in his words, "in general the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations will be beneficial for Armenia and proceeds from its interests". "That is why we try to achieve stabilization of the relations by means of the dialogue. Our main task is to fix the progress in bilateral relations, the issue of opening of the border being mostly accentuated", - V.Oskanian stated. At the same time the minister noted, that Yerevan approaches the situation practically and understands that the stabilization of relations cannot be achieved at once. The only obstacle on the this path is Turkey's term that had been made on account of the Karabakh issue, though it should be noted that recently Turkey has not connected this problem with the opening of the borders as it did before. However the question has not been removed yet", - Armenian FM noted. The minister also emphasized that to date the issue of establishing diplomatic relations with Turkey is not on the agenda of official Yerevan.