The FINANCIAL — According to RIA Novosti, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan will visit Turkey on October 14 to watch a qualifier for the 2010 football World Cup between the two countries.
"[Turkish] President [Abdullah] Gul visited Armenia, and I see no reason for not accepting Gul's invitation," Sargsyan told journalists on Monday before boarding a flight to Moscow, where he is to hold talks with President Dmitry Medvedev.
Gul attended the reverse fixture in Armenia last year.
"If there are no emergencies in the next two days, I will go and support my favorite team," Sargsyan said.
Turkey and Armenia signed on Saturday historic accords restoring diplomatic relations and opening borders between the two countries. The documents are still to be ratified by parliaments amid continued fierce opposition from nationalist parties in both countries.
Armenia's foreign minister said the Armenian-Turkish border could be reopened before the end of the current year.
"I would not rule out anything. Everything is possible. This depends on how the parties respect the accords and move forward. Armenia has always respected agreements signed with other countries," Edouard Nalbandian said in an interview published on Monday in Russian business daily Kommersant.
The European Armenian Federation for Justice has spoken against the accords, which it said do not take into account issues such as the Turkish genocide of Armenians, recognition of the borders between Armenia and Turkey, and the Nagorny Karabakh conflict.
Turkey demands that Yerevan drop its campaign to have the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 internationally recognized as genocide.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in a show of support for Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking ally of Ankara, following a bloody conflict over Nagorny Karabakh between the two republics.
The region in Azerbaijan, which has a largely Armenian population, has been a source of conflict between the former Soviet republics since the late 1980s and is de facto independent. Azerbaijan strongly opposes normalization of ties between Ankara and Yerevan before the Nagorny Karabakh conflict is resolved.
Armenia and Turkey agreed to a "roadmap" to normalize their relations under Swiss mediation this April. The draft pact between the countries had been backed by the United States and European Union.
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