Armenian opposition leader backs efforts to normalise ties with Turkey

YEREVAN, Armenia

Former president and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian said on Friday (May 1st) that his Armenian National Congress Party will back reconciliation efforts towards Turkey.

“We are in favour of the soonest possible settlement of Armenian-Turkish relations and we are ready to support all positive steps to this end,” Ter-Petrosian told a party rally in Yerevan. Last month, Turkey and Armenia announced a roadmap to normalise bilateral ties. It envisions several steps, such as opening border crossings, signing agreements to boost trade relations and establishing a joint commission of historians to address the World War I-era massacres of Armenians.

The two neighbours have had no diplomatic relations for more than a decade. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 to protest Armenia’s occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, nationalists in Armenia have hotly protested moves towards rapprochement.