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Speaking at a conference in the European Parliament on April 3, Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council (TABDC) co-chair Kaan Soyak called for the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border. Entitled ‘Still an Iron Curtain: Armenia-Turkey relations, 10 years after the border was closed/ April, 3, 1993-April, 3, 2003", the conference was hosted and chaired by Per Gahrton MEP (EP rapporteur for the Caucasus) and Joost Lagendijk MEP (Chairman of the EP delegation for relations with Turkey). The event marked the 10th anniversary of the closure by Turkey of its Armenian border, in connection with the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Addressing the conference, Mr. Soyak emphasized the obvious opportunities which opening the border presents for all the countries in the region, including Turkey and Armenia. According to the World Bank, the current status quo is the number 1 obstacle to the development of a region otherwise well endowed in natural resources, human capital and infrastructure. The economic crisis in Eastern Turkey is made considerably worse by the region’s inability to trade across the border, while the cost of closed borders to the republic of Armenia alone is estimated between 30 and 40% of its GNP.

This latest call is part of a long-standing effort by the TABDC to obtain the opening of the Armenia-Turkey border and promote economic cooperation in the region. The group has campaigned for this in Turkey since 1997 and it has worked at all levels and in both countries for development economic relations between. It is led by Mr Soyak, a prominent Turkish businessman, and Arsen Ghazarian, currently Chairman of the Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen of Armenia (UMBA).

Kaan Soyak presented the activities of TABDC in the field of public diplomacy. Besides its lobbying activities with all regional institutions and agencies, TABDC has been working for increasing direct interactions by sponsoring numerous trade missions, joint cultural activities, academic cooperation and student exchange programmes and has been working on an awareness raising campaign for the restoration of Armenian monuments in Turkey. Soyak has made a presentation from the perspective of a business pracitioner of the regional impact of a Turkish-Armenian cooperative strategy especially within the TRACECA (Transport Corridor Europe/Caucasus/Asia): the use of the existing railway connection between the two countries will integrate the most cost-effective, commercially viable and strategically beneficial East-West corridor to the EC sponsored transport programme.

Per Gahrton MEP, host of the conference and author of the EP report on EU relations with the South Caucasus, emphasized that the position taken by the European Parliament in February 2002 relating to Armenia-Turkey relations still stand. He repeated the call formulated in his report, and endorsed by the European Parliament, for the Turkish government to open the Armenian border. He pointed out, furthermore, that in his view initiatives to reopen the Armenia-Turkey border are the most promising way out of the deadlock in the Caucasus.

Both Per Gahrton and Joost Lagendijk underscored that the conference aimed to draw the attention of the European institutions on the much neglected Turkish-Armenian relations and on the closure of their common border.

An analytical report on relations between Armenia and Turkey, also published on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the blockade by the Brussels-based think tank GRIP, was presented to the conference by Burcu Gültekin and Nicolas Tavitian. This report, the first of its kind published in the European Union, analyses the factors in the current deadlock, spells out its human, political and economic costs, and points to possible steps out of the impasse.

The conference was attended by representatives of NGOs, observers, members of Parliament as well as by officials and diplomats from the EU institutions and from the Embassies of Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Further information:

Per Gahrton and Joost Lagendijk

Press office of the Green group of the European Parliament:
Email: hweixler@europarl.eu.int
Tel ++ 32 2 284 46 83. Fax ++ 32 284 49 44

Press release by Joost Lagendijk MEP: http://www.groenlinks.nl/partij/europa/nieuws/4001733.html

B. Gültekin and N Tavitian’s report on relations between Armenia and Turkey is available on the web site of the GRIP, Belgium, at: www.grip.be.

TABDC ISTANBUL :
Tel: (0-212) 236 00 17 Fax: (0-212) 259 72 51
e-mail : tabdc@tabdc.org
website: www.tabdc.org

TABDC YEREVAN:
Abelyan 6/1 Str.Yerevan, Armenia
Tel: (374-1) 35 11 80 Fax: (374-1) 35 12 40

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