The Armenian-Turkish border can be opened only with the agreement of both sides without any preconditions, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan told Sputnik agency.

“One cannot say that the issue is 50 percent resolved, that is not the case. Nothing depends on us in this respect,” Sargsyan said in an interview with the head of Rossiya Segodnya agency Dmitry Kiselev.

He said that despite tensions in the Armenian-Turkish relations in 2008, Armenia initiated negotiations with Turkey and in 2009 the countries signed protocols on opening the border.

“Do you understand my feeling when I traveled almost all over the world, meeting with representatives of the Armenian Diaspora. And in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Beirut thousands of their citizens of Armenian origin took to the streets demanding that the President of Armenia should not sign the protocols. I was working, I was asking, I was begging,” Sargsyan said.

“But unfortunately some time later Turkey turned out not to be ready to ratify these protocols and in fact to establish ties with Armenia without preconditions,” Sargsyan said. The president said that Turkey demanded to exert pressure on Nagorno-Karabakh so that it transferred one of the districts it controlled to Azerbaijan. From Sargsyan’s point of view such preconditions should have been announced before signing the protocols. “After that we have no relations with Turkey,” he added.

Sargsyan said he wanted the opening of the Armenian and Turkish border.

“I want Turkish youth understand that they are not to blame for the fact that the Armenian Genocide was carried out in the Ottoman Empire. Because in fact, what is the blame of the Turkish youth?” he said.