YEREVAN. July 20 (Interfax-AVN) - Armenia's defense minister has excluded the possibility of Turkey mediating in the two-decade-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the latter's disputed Armenian-speaking enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
"I exclude the possibility of Turkey getting involved in a new mediating mission because for many years the policy of that country has made clear that Ankara is not in a position to be constructive or, most importantly, impartial," Seiran Ohanian said in an exclusive interview with Interfax.
"It came home to us once again during the Armenian-Turkish process of seeking the ratification of the protocols on establishing bilateral relations," he said in reference to abortive attempts by the two countries to establish diplomatic relations.
The mediator in the conflict is the Minsk Group, an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe body co-headed by Russia, the United States and France.
The so-called Meiendorf Declaration, a document signed by the Armenian and Azeri presidents in Meiendorf Castle, a Russian presidential residence outside Moscow, in November 2008 and brokered by Russia, "unambiguously dispelled the [expectations] of some political forces that Turkey would be a mediator in the negotiations," Ohanian said.
The document declared talks to be the only acceptable way of seeking a solution to the conflict.
"Turkey's attempts to settle its relations with Armenia via a set of preconditions are effectively conducive to drawing dividing lines in the region. Turkey's economic and transportation blockade of Armenia because of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is, I think, an immoral form of behavior besides being an illogical one," Ohanian said.