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Turkey Imposes New Precondition on Armenia ANKARA, Turkey-Turkey has set a new precondition for the normalization of its relations with Armenia by demanding that the latter give Azerbaijan an overland link with Nakhichevan in any future peace agreement over Nagorno Karabagh, reported RFE/RL. During a meeting in Ankara with US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on June 6, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told him that a "security corridor" passing through southeastern Armenia should be a key point of the peace settlement. The Turkish government had previously announced that it would not establish diplomatic relations with Armenia until Yerevan ensures Karabagh's return to Azerbaijani control and abandons its pursuit of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide. In Baku, Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan Kadri Ecvet Tezcan confirmed that his country put forward a third precondition. "I cannot imagine Nakhichevan separated from the main part of Azerbaijan," Tezcan said. He also claimed that "Meghri was Azerbaijani land some time ago. This region was given to Armenia during Soviet times and consequently Nakhichevan and Azerbaijan were separated." Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian called the new demand "unacceptable" and "nonsensical." He said that Turkey cannot make its relations with Armenia conditional on the latter's ties with a third country. Tezcan argued that Turkey wants to be "closely involved" in the Karabagh issue because of its "love for the Azerbaijani people and because of international law." Turkey is linked to Nakhichevan by a ten-kilometer strip of land. Such a land corridor through Meghri would provide it with a conduit to the rest of Azerbaijan and other Turkic republics of the former Soviet Union. Following a wave of official recognition of
the Armenian Genocide by several European parliaments last year,
Ankara signaled its intention to soften its policy on Armenia. Foreign
Minister Oskanian said the move has proved to be a public relations
move aimed at staving off similar resolutions by other Western legislatures.
People of Meghri Oppose Corridor Idea YEREVAN, Armenia-Various official representatives of the southern region of Meghri in Armenia issued a formal statement this week rejecting discussions about a corridor through the territory linking Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan. The corridor has been discussed in talks sponsored by the OSCE Minsk Group to resolve the Nagorno Karabagh conflict. The statement was signed by the mayors of Meghri and Agarak, the heads of the villages in the Meghri region, the heads of the territorial organizations of the Hanrabedutiun Party, the Armenian People's Party, the Armenian Republican Party, the Armenian Communist Party, the manager of the Meghri territorial communications, and former parliamentarian David Matevosian. The following is the text of the "Statement by the People of Meghri": Various rumors are circulating about the settlement of the Nagorno Karabagh conflict, such as granting Azerbaijan a corridor through Meghri. In favor of an immediate peaceful settlement of the conflict on the basis of mutual compromises, recalling that at the time of extremely tense Armenian-Azeri relations (1991-92) the functioning of the main communication (railway) through Meghri was provided without the help of any outside force, which was also the result of the will of the local population and the fact that the above communication was severed by the Azeri side due to its blockade of Armenia, we consider the inclusion of a Meghri corridor in the package of the resolution of the Karabagh problem, the restoration of communications and deployment of peacekeeping forces unacceptable. On the basis of the aforementioned we state:
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