“For about ten years after the cease-fire, Azerbaijan, and its ally Turkey, expected Armenia to collapse under the weight of poverty, economic stagnation and despair. This hasn’t happened and it will not happen. But no lessons are being learned from this experience. The blockade continues,” Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian stated speaking in the OSCE Permanent Council’s session.
He said, in the issue to normalize relations with Turkey the Armenian side does not put any preconditions and expects that Turkey, too, won’t have preconditions. “This is the last closed border in Europe, and it needs to open, so that Turkey can engage in the region more positively, and bring its positive contribution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict,” the RA FM underlined.
Vartan Oskanian also said, the blockade continues. “And with new efforts: the evidence is the recent signing of a deal to begin construction of a new railroad that will circumvent Armenia. We never expected that new initiatives, Baku-Ceyhan for example, would go through Armenia, but it’s amazing to even contemplate that one might consider spending $700 mil to $1 billion to build a new railroad where there is an existing rail that will perform the same function, just to bypass Armenia,” Oskanian stressed.
The RA Foreign Minister noted Armenia has offered Turkey and Azerbaijan to use the existing one – the Kars-Gyumri railroad. “Armenia would be willing not to be a beneficiary of the running of the railroad, we won’t transport our goods on that railroad, we won’t even charge transit fees, just use it, instead of spending $700 million,” Oskanian said. According to him unfortunately Turkey and Azerbaijan have not met Armenia halfway on this issue. “Armenia will not be isolated, but we can be alienated. A new railroad will not make us succumb, it will not do more harm than the existing closed border. It’s the political environment that will suffer, that’s what we regret, not the economic benefits,” Mr. Oskanian said. “We will continue to advocate that the existing rail line be opened. And we will go further, and ask that Turkey open the border and establish normal ties with Armenia,” the Armenian Foreign Minister underscored.
