Border will not be opened anytime soon
There will not be opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, at least not this year, according to President of the Union of Politicians of Armenia Hmayak Hovhannisyan.
"I firmly believe that the border will not be opened until the end of the year. Serzh Sargsyan's states that if the border is not opened in the fall, it will be opened after the football match; if not, by the end of the year it will definitely be opened. I don't think that this is realistic," told "A1+" Hmayak Hovhannisyan.
According to the politician, Turkey will not open the border until the end of the Kars-Akhalkalak-Tbilisi-Baku railway construction and will not allow that project to lose meaning.
"It is a geopolitical project opening a pathway between East and West. After the implementation of that project and the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, the Kars-Gyumri railway will no longer be of strategic importance and can't be competitive. The opening of the border will only make us rely on the same roads and the railway will lose its potential for communications," said Hmayak Hovhannisyan. Besides that, Hovhannisyan views an issue with Russian border-guards.
Hmayak Hovhannisyan also ties the Turkish-Armenian talks with Levon Ter-Petrosyan's return to politics.
"As Ali Babacan stated recently, talks on the normalization of Turkish-Armenian ties had begun in the fall of 2007. He also said that the Armenian side insisted on keeping the talks confidential. I don't consider this by chance."
Hmayak Hovhannisyan recalled the speech made by Levon Ter-Petrosyan on September 21, 2007 when he discussed his approaches on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and other regional conflicts, courses for overcoming the isolation of Armenia from regional projects and attached importance to the need to open the Turkish-Armenian border. The secret talks began right after that in Switzerland. Knowing that those issues would be of importance after the return of Ter-Petrosyan, it was in his interest to take the initiative of starting the talks and try to deprive Ter-Petrosyan of playing a role in that geopolitical game.
