Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said Turkey would start accession negotiations with the European Union this year, adding that in such a situation his country could make important changes in its foreign policy.
Speaking during a conference at Yerevan University on Thursday, Oskanian said they hoped U.S. efforts to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia would bear fruit.
Turkey expects to get the go-ahead at a December summit to start accession talks with the EU.
Turkey has no diplomatic relations with Armenia because the Christian ex-Soviet republic occupies Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory populated by ethnic Armenians but assigned to the Turkic-speaking, mainly Muslim Azerbaijan in the Soviet era.
About 35,000 people died in six years of fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh that ended in a 1994 cease-fire. A decade of diplomatic efforts by the United States, France and Russia to end the deadlock have so far failed.
Oskanian said they didn’t expect the Minsk Group, a body formed within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to serve as mediator over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict or to put pressure on the sides to come up with a solution. He added that ending the cease-fire and resuming the war after the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline becomes operational was out of the question.
Turkey and Azerbaijan will be linked in the near future by the BTC oil pipeline, which will pump crude oil from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
The pipeline, built by an international consortium, is strongly backed by the United States and will cost around $3 billion.
Genocide condition from French socialists
Meanwhile, the main opposition Socialist Party of France said recognition of the alleged Armenian genocide should be a pre-condition of Turkey starting its membership talks with the EU.
In a joint press statement, Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande and head of the Federation of Revolutionist Armenians (FRA) in France Murat Papazyan said Turkey should be expected to recognize the so-called Armenian genocide as a condition to starting EU talks.
The Armenians claim that during the Ottoman Empire their ancestors were executed for allegedly helping the invading Russian army during World War I. Turkey, heir of the Ottoman Empire, rejects the genocide claim, insisting that Armenians were killed in civil unrest during the collapse of the empire.
The statement said that unlike the right-wing parties of France, the Socialist Party supported Turkey’s EU bid and did not perceive the religious difference as an obstacle.
Last month in a press briefing, French President Jacques Chirac opposed any link between Turkey’s EU aspirations and recognition of the alleged Armenian genocide.
The statement by the Socialist Party prior to the elections in the European Parliament is perceived as a move to attract Armenian votes in France, said the Anatolia news agency.
Turkey has fought hard to block international attempts to raise the issue of the alleged Armenian genocide, while Armenia, with its seven-million-strong diaspora, has been pressing for international recognition of the so-called genocide.
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