Turkish PM sets conditions to Armenia reconciliation: report

[John]

"We will not sign a final deal with Armenia unless there is agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia on Nagorny Karabakh," Erdogan was quoted as telling reporters.

He was speaking from the southern province of Hatay, where he is holidaying, in response to remarks by Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian earlier Friday.

Sarkisian had expressed the hope that the border with Turkey, closed for more than a decade, would reopen before an October football match between their national teams.

"We can do the preliminary work (for a deal with Armenia), but it definitely depends on the resolution of the conflict over Nagorny Karabakh," Erdogan said.

Recent reports have suggested that Ankara and Yerevan will soon sign a landmark deal paving the way for formal diplomatic ties and opening their shared border.

The reports have irked Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey.

Azerbaijan insists that any deal should be contingent on Armenian concessions over Nagorny Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave that broke away from Baku during a war in the early 1990s.

On a visit to Turkey this week, US President Barak Obama urged Ankara and Yerevan to "move forward" in fence-mending talks to normalize ties poisoned by disagreements over the World War I killings of Armenians.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically killed between 1915 and 1917 during the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey's predecessor -- a charge that Ankara categorically denies.

Turkey has refused to establish diplomatic ties with Armenia because of Yerevan's international campaign to have the killings recognized as genocide.

In 1993, Turkey also shut its border with Armenia in a show of solidarity with Azerbaijan over the conflict over Nagorny Karabakh.

Ankara and Yerevan have been pursuing a tentative reconciliation process that has gathered steam since President Abdullah Gul paid a landmark visit last year to Armenia, the first by a Turkish leader, to watch a football match.

[JohnCenaFan28]

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