Azernews.Az

ANKARA - A top Turkish official has dismissed a report that Ankara is considering temporarily opening border with Armenia for a NATO disaster-relief exercise in September, Anadolu news agency reports.
"I have spoken on this subject with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, stressing that it is impossible to open the border now. Let no one expect it", Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the press on the sidelines of an informal OSCE ministerial in Almaty on Saturday.
The AFP news agency quoted an unnamed Turkish diplomat as saying Ankara has decided to participate in an exercise to be held in Armenia's central Kotayk region by NATO's Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Center.
The drills, scheduled for September 11-17, are due to bring together up to 1,000 participants from two dozen NATO member and partner states. They will simulate a multinational response to a powerful earthquake resulting in a humanitarian and environmental disaster.
After decades of hostility, Turkey, Azerbaijan’s ally, and Armenia, with whom Azerbaijan faces a long-standing conflict, signed protocols to establish diplomatic relations and reopen their borders in Zurich last October. However, the documents require ratification in both countries’ parliaments, and Turkish officials have ruled out their approval in the Grand National Assembly before progress is made in the Garabagh conflict.
There has reportedly been speculation in both countries in recent weeks that Ankara could also temporary open its border checkpoints to Armenians planning to attend the September 19 mass at the 10th-century Armenian Church of the Holy Cross, which is located on an island in a lake in Turkey's Van Province, not far from Armenia.