By SPA
Ankara : Turkey’s president said on Thursday he hoped the victory of Serzh Sarksyan in Armenia’s presidential election would lead to a normalisation of relations between their estranged countries, Reuters reported.
Turkey has no diplomatic relations with Armenia and keeps their land border closed in protest at Yerevan’s occupation of territory belonging to ally Azerbaijan.
Turkey and Armenia are also at loggerheads over Ankara’s refusal to acknowledge as genocide the mass killings of ethnic Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915-16.
“I hope your new position … will permit the creation of the necessary environment for normalising relations between the Turkish and Armenian peoples, who have proven over centuries they can live together in peace and concord,” President Abdullah Gul said in a message of congratulations to Sarksyan.
“I sincerely wish that … an atmosphere based on reciprocal trust and cooperation can be established that will contribute to regional peace and prosperity,” Gul said.
Sarksyan, 53, took 52.86 percent of the votes in Tuesday’s election but thousands of supporters of his main challenger Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Armenia’s first president, say the ballot was rigged and have staged protests in the capital Yerevan.
Western observers say the poll was broadly fair.