President Abdullah Gül has said Turkey is working to rescue a stalled Turkish-Armenian reconciliation process, reiterating that the country is “determined” in this regard.
Gül told a group of Turkish journalists in Astana, where he attended the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit, that the normalization process he initiated two years ago with Armenia to bury century-long animosities is “not dead.” “We are determined. Work is needed to find out in what ways and how this could be done. Difficult issues are not resolved in one move. Persistent work on it is needed and we are working,” Gül said.
Gül's remarks came hours after a harsh exchange of invectives at the summit between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sarksyan, over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Observers believe Azerbaijan's discontent over the reconciliation process was a primary reason why the process ground to a halt. Azerbaijan claims the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a chief security threat in the region and its resolution should be made a priority, while Turkey maintains simultaneous progress in both processes.
Gül also said he briefly talked to Sarksyan during the summit and told him that Turkey maintains its decisiveness in the normalization process and that it attaches importance to the settlement of these problems, something which is sure to benefit all.
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