A historic visit by Turkish President Abdullah Gul to long-time foe Armenia on Saturday could open the door to restoring diplomatic relations, Turkey's foreign minister said. "My president's visit to Yerevan ... is going to be an important step to open doors for dialogue with Armenia," Ali Babacan told Reuters. Last month's war between Russia and Georgia had dislodged a series of frozen conflicts in the Caucasus, raising risks of further instability but also creating opportunities for new diplomatic efforts to resolve them, he said. "The current circumstances, we believe, are conducive for such a bold step,"Babacan said in an interview late on Friday night in Avignon, France, where he was attending a meeting of European Union foreign ministers. Gul seized the opportunity of a World Cup soccer qualifying match in Yerevan to break a diplomatic deadlock that has endured since the early 1990s and try to overcome an enmity going back nearly 100 years. Ankara severed ties and closed its border with the former Soviet republic after Armenia occupied part of neighbouring Azerbaijan in the conflict over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. "Now is the time to talk about the problems openly, boldly and to try to find solutions," said Babacan, who left the EU meeting early to accompany the president to Yerevan. "We don't have diplomatic relations right now with Armenia. What are we going to do about that? That's another issue for discussion." Asked whether a restoration of ties could be an outcome of the visit, he said: "I don't want to raise expectations that much. We have to see how (Saturday's) meeting goes. We are ready for more dialogue. This all has to be discussed."
