Zaman. Baku not Worried Over Turkey-Armenia Talks

9:40 Yerevan | 5:40 GMT | Thursday 24 July 2008

Azerbaijan is not concerned over secret talks between Armenia and regional ally Turkey, a spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has said. Spokesman Khazar Ibrahim said on Monday that the Azerbaijani government was interested in Turkey's official position, which Ankara said has not changed.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan confirmed last week that there had been secret talks between Turkish Foreign Ministry diplomats and Armenian officials earlier this month but underlined that such talks were taking place from time to time to discuss ways to normalize relations between the two estranged neighbors. The Foreign Ministry also said no special meaning should be attributed to these talks.

"What is important for us is the official statements of the Turkish officials. Mr. Babacan said Turkey's policy has not changed, and we hope that future steps Turkey will take will be in line with this policy," Ibrahim, speaking at a press conference, was quoted by the Anatolia news agency late on Monday as saying.

Turkey closed its border and severed its diplomatic ties with Armenia in protest of Armenia's occupation of the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. Ankara says normalization of ties depends on Armenian withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh, a change of policy in Yerevan on claims of an Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and formal recognition of the Turkish-Armenian border by Armenia.

The Turkish-Armenian talks, which reportedly took place on July 8 in Switzerland, came amid calls for dialogue from Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan. Sarksyan repeated his call for closer ties with Turkey on Monday, telling a news conference that the improvement of ties between Armenia and Turkey is mutually beneficial. Sarksyan said earlier this month that he had invited his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gül, to visit Yerevan and watch a football match in September.

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