Armenian entrepreneurs should not fear they would lose competition to Turkish peers: U.S. ambassador
24.11.2011,
04:03
Armenian entrepreneurs should not fear they would lose the competition to Turkish peers if the border between the two counties opens, U.S. ambassador to Armenia John Heffern, said today
YEREVAN, November 23. /ARKA/. Armenian entrepreneurs should not fear they would lose the competition to Turkish peers if the border between the two counties opens, U.S. ambassador to Armenia John Heffern, said today at the closing of a two-day Armenian-Turkish business forum in Yerevan.
He said Armenian business people have gained the reputation of one of the best entrepreneurs in the world, so they should not fear competition with Turkish peers.
According to Heffern, the opening of the closed border will benefit both nations. He said a lot of efforts should be made to normalize relations between the two countries. The main one is the adoption of the Armenian-Turkish protocols, he said, adding that the U.S. helps the process of normalization between Armenia and Turkey.
The ambassador said the U.S., Armenia and Turkey must work to strengthen ties between the Armenian and Turkish people at different levels, in which the business people of the two countries have excelled.
"One of the objectives of such conferences is to help establish contacts between the two countries' businesses which are the partners of the U.S.," he said.
The forum was organized by the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Armenia with collaboration with USAID as part of a two-year project designed to promote Armenian-Turkish rapprochement. A similar gathering will be organized in 2012 October in Turkey. The partner in the joint forum is the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council (TABDC). Armenian and Turkish business structures, including associations of women entrepreneurs, will sign several memoranda on cooperation.
Turkey and Armenia have had no diplomatic ties since Armenia became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in a show of support for its ally, Azerbaijan, which had a dispute with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, the ethnic Armenian enclave of Azerbaijan.
There are several sensitive issues complicating the establishment of normal relations between the two countries, particularly, Ankara’s blatant support of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution process and Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge the mass killings of Armenians in the last years of the Ottoman Empire as genocide. –0--
