Armenia: No relations, no open border so no visas

10 May 2007
The New Anatolia / Ankara

After Armenia denied entry to Turkish election observers on the weekend an Armenian official said Turkey was not eligible for that task because it didn't start diplomatic relations and didn't open its border with Armenia.

"My government has decided not to issue visas," said Vladimir Karapetian, press secretary of the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the New Anatolian. "The reason is the rejection of Turkey to open borders with Armenia, as well as not willingness of the Turkish side to open diplomatic relations. In this situation my government decided that Turkey does not have eligibility to monitor the elections."

The observers, eight Turkish foreign policy experts of a mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were already on their way to the airport when the OSCE's human rights office informed them Sunday afternoon that Armenia refused to issue their visas.

Turkey closed its 268 km border with its eastern neighbor in 1993 backing Azerbaijan in the war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian-populated region situated inside the republic of Azerbaijan. A ceasefire signed in 1994 left the region under ethnic Armenian control without leading to a final settlement of the conflict. Being already landlocked, Turkey and Azerbaijan imposed trade blockades further hampering Armenia's economic development. Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations.

Urdur Gunnarsdottir, spokeswoman for the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights based in Warsaw, said her office was concerned about Armenia's rejection of Turkish observers.

"This is in breach of OSCE commitment, because Armenia, as any other country in the OSCE (…) pledged to invite all other OSCE states to observe their elections. And there is no small print, there is nothing saying that countries can select their observers."

Gunnarsdottir said all attempts by the OSCE "to resolve this" with the Armenian authorities have failed.

After Turkey's ministry of foreign affairs learned about Armenia's refusal of Turkish OSCE observers it stated Armenia's actions show it is "far from constructive dialogue" and creating better relations with its neighbors.

Mitat Celikpala, a professor of political science at the University of Economics and Technology in Ankara is one of the eight Turkish OSCE election observers whom Armenia denied entry. "All of them are academics, they know the issue very well and we don't have any prejudices against Armenians," he said. "Therefore it would be a good thing if it was possible to go to Armenia, we would write I think very positive articles and comments for newspapers. But now we don't have any chance."

Armenia invited the OSCE in February to observe the May parliamentary elections. After the monitoring of previous elections in Armenia the pan-European security organization criticized Armenia's failure to comply with democratic standards, pointing to irregularities like the falsification of results, intimidation of observers and violation of the secrecy of the ballot.

Although the OSCE plans to work with about 300 observers to monitor the election, Gunnarsdottir said the absence of the Turkish members might negatively impact the monitoring process. "There will be fewer observers, because we cannot get observers on that short notice," she said.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.