Sport can sometimes help to smooth relations and build common ground between regional enemies who have severed almost all ties. On Saturday, the Armenian and Turkish football teams faced each other in a World Cup qualifier. The Armenian President, Serge Sarkisian, took the opportunity to invite his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gül, to watch the match. Several days after receiving the historic invitation, and despite opposition from groups in Turkey, Armenia and also Azerbaijan, Gül accepted.

Gül becomes the first Turkish president to visit the former Soviet republic since Armenia declared independence in 1991. Diplomatic ties between Ankara and Yerevan have been almost non-existent for years, and the border between the two countries has been closed since 1993. There are two main reasons for the ongoing hostility, the fact that Turkey continues to deny the Armenian genocide, and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Hostile neighbours
While the Armenian President's invitation marks an initial step along the road to solving highly controversial issues, a short-term solution is still very unlikely. In Turkey, use of the term "Armenian genocide" remains a crime against the state. However, the tide may now be turning. When Armenian writer Hrant Dink was assassinated in Istanbul in 2007, many Turks expressed solidarity with the Armenian population. Meanwhile, the international community, and the European Union in particular, is increasing the pressure on Turkey to recognize the Armenian genocide, which - if and when it happens - would signal a real turning-point in Armenia-Turkey relations.

Turkey is an ally of Azerbaijan, Armenia's enemy in the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In 1993, shortly after Armenia became independent, war broke out between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabkah, a region of Azerbaijan with a majority Armenian population that annexed itself to Armenia in 1988. Yerevan gave its full backing to Karabakh, while Turkey gave armed and logistical support to its Azeri allies. It was as a result of this conflict that Ankara closed its border with Armenia and began to isolate its neighbour diplomatically and economically. The region's two major energy projects, the construction of an oil pipeline and a gas pipeline linking Baku, in Azerbaijan, to the Turkish cities of Ceyhan and Erzurum, bypass Armenia.

Further information:

• NouvelObs.com: Visite historique d'Abdhullah Gül en Arménie
• Nationalia: First official meeting between Armenian and Azeri Foreign Ministers