Economy Minister Mehmet Şimşek, while attending a meeting on regional development in the far eastern province of Iğdır, located near the border with Armenia, said Turkey, with its large purchasing capacity of $950 billion, does not need economic ties with Armenia, emphasizing that Armenia should be the one to take steps to normalize its ties with Turkey. "We don't need them, they need us. Turkey wants good economic ties with its neighbors. If they see this fact and take a step toward us, we will take a step toward them," Şimşek said."We have no commercial or political dialogue with the Armenians due to the problems caused by them. Opening of the border gate is unfortunately not possible for the time being without Armenia resolving its problems with Azerbaijan and changing its stance toward Turkey," Şimşek, who was accompanied by Rıza Nur Meral, chairman of the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON), and a 200-strong delegation of investors and businessmen, said late Saturday.
Turkey severed its diplomatic ties and closed the border gate with landlocked Armenia in the last decade, following Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. The Armenian occupation of the Azerbaijani territory has been maintained. Ankara also refuses to normalize its relations with Yerevan because Armenia seeks a worldwide recognition for claims that 1.5 million Armenians were subject to genocide at the hands of the late Ottoman Empire during World War I in eastern Anatolia and fails to declare that it has no territorial claims on eastern Anatolia despite Turkish demands to that effect.
Hopes for reconciliation between the two countries resurfaced when President Abdullah Gül sent a congratulatory message to Serzh Sarkisian following his election to power in February. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan had also sent similar messages to their Armenian counterparts following the establishment of the new government in the neighboring country, expressing hopes for a new era that will contribute to regional peace, stability and welfare.
But no visible progress has been achieved on the contentious issues. Armenia rejected a 2005 call from Turkey to jointly examine archives to find out what happened during World War I and Sarkisian vowed in April to step up efforts for international recognition of the genocide claims.
Şimşek said trade with neighboring countries was vital for the economy of the border provinces and lamented that Iğdır and neighboring Kars lagged behind compared to provinces located on borders with other neighbors. He noted that the government would continue to channel funds to regional development projects, supporting particularly the agriculture and livestock sectors, and also emphasized that Mount Ağrı (Ararat) could become a tourist attraction.
Benzer Haberler 
Diplomacy
