10/10/2018 15:37
Armenia’s NA vice speaker describes Armenia’s blockade by Turkey “unacceptable”
Armenia’s blockade by Turkey is unacceptable, vice speaker of the Armenian parliament Eduard Sharmazanov said at the conference of speakers of the Eurasian parliaments in Antalya.
“The main prerequisites for the development of contemporary economic relations are open borders. In this regard blockade and close borders create artificial and unacceptable impediments on the way of bilateral and multisided cooperation,” Sharmazanov stressed in his speech.
“Unfortunately, Turkey which has organized such important and representative event, has one-sidedly closed the border with Armenia since 1993. Armenia has always spoken in favor of development of bilateral relations with Turkey without preconditions. Armenia’s blockade by Turkey is unacceptable,” Sharmazanov said.
He stressed that the Eurasian stable development is possible only in secure environment but there are regions in Eurasia which are involved in conflicts and the establishment of lasting peace demands great efforts and will.
“Karabakh conflict settlement remains one of the most important issues of the region. The bellicose rhetoric and aggression selected by the Azerbaijani side as a main strategy of its foreign policy impede the grounds of security and stability not only in the region but the whole continent. Armenia is for exclusively peaceful settlement of the conflict in the margins of the OSCE Minsk Group,” the vice speaker said.
“It is not a territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan as the later tries to present, but the issue of realization of the right to self-determination by the people of Nagorno Karabakh without which the settlement of the conflict is impossible,” he stressed.
In the event Eduard Sharmazanov expressed Armenia’s readiness to host the next conference of the Eurasian parliament speakers in Yerevan in 2020.