Wednesday, 20 May 2009
The French Embassy in Ankara separated Turkish-Armenian relations from the Upper Karabakh dispute.
The French Embassy in Ankara released a statement and said that normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations and solution of Upper Karabakh disputes were two separate processes.
"Normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations and the solution of Upper Karabakh dispute are two separate processes that should be parallel to each other but should progress on their own," the embassy said.
The statement came after the visit of Bernard Fassier, the French co-chairman of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to Turkey.
Fassier visited Turkey on Monday and met Ertugrul Apakan, the undersecretary of Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of efforts to find a peaceful solution to Upper Karabakh, a territory under Armenian occupation.
OSCE is currently acting as a mediator for the peaceful solution of the Upper Karabakh issue.
The embassy said that France was supporting and encouraging the rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia, and at the same time it was determined to work together with the U.S. and Russian co-chairmen of the Minsk Group to find a fair and sustainable solution to Upper Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In its statement, the embassy said that any progress to be made in either normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations or the solution of Upper Karabakh dispute would be a positive step for the entire region.
The embassy also said that normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations, particularly regarding the Upper Karabakh dispute, would have a positive impact on settlement of ongoing conflicts in the region.
