Armenia Ready To Establish Ties With Turkey: PM

Armenia is prepared to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey without any pre-conditions, said Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian.

Turkey, which just re-elected Recep Tayyip Erdo?an to an unprecedented third term as Prime Minister, should move toward rapprochement, the Armenian leader added.

Sarkisian also suggested that the border between the Turkey and Atmenia – closed since 1993 – should be re-opened.

Having closed borders in the 21st Century is nonsense, Sarkisian told the BBC.

In 2009, Turkey and Armenia signed a historic pact to re-establish ties, but that deal broke down after Erdogan demanded that Armenia resolve its conflicts with its neighbor to the east, Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia and Azerbaijan started a war in 1988 over the disputed land. That conflict ended un a ceasefire in 1994, but the two nations are still technically at war (there have been periodic clashes ever since).

More than 25,000 people dies in the war and one million people became homeless.

It is unclear whether or not Erdogan has changed his stance on this subject.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an area in southwestern Azerbaijan, which is dominated by ethnic Armenians.

Meanwhile, Sarkisian warned that if Azerbaijan sought to seize Nagorno-Karabakh by military force he was prepared to launch another war.

We have a bellicose partner [Azerbaijan], Sarkisian said, according to BBC.

So the only way to ensure there is peace in the region is to be prepared for war. The balance of power in the region needs to remain intact.

A spokesman for the Azerbaijan foreign ministry told BBC: We are committed to peace negotiations, and this process is underway, but we can't be holding talks for the sake of talks. Armenia has to withdraw its army from the region first - that will help put an end to war-mongering rhetoric.

The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet in late June in Kazan, Russia to find a solution to their crisis. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will chair that conference.

Aside from the Nagorno-Karabakh affair, Turkey and Armenia have much bigger concerns – namely, Armenia’s frustration and anger over Turkey’s refusal to admit that its government committed genocide against its Armenian population during World War I.

As many as 1.5-million Armenians are believed to have been murdered by the Ottoman Turks. However, Ankara has long claimed that the deaths arose from war, famine and disease.