Armenia's Sargsyan to watch football match in Turkey

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan is set to visit the Marmara province of Bursa on Wednesday to watch a World Cup qualifying match between the Turkish and Armenian national soccer teams alongside his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul. Sargsyan would be the first Armenian leader to visit Turkey in decades. "If nothing extraordinary happens in the next two days, I will go and support my beloved team," Sargsyan told reporters yesterday. "I don't have any serious reason not to accept this invitation." Sargsyan’s statements came on the heels of Turkey and Armenia signing protocols to establish diplomatic ties, to open their shared border, which has been closed by Turkey since 1993 in protest of the Armenian invasion of the Azeri territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, and to take the first steps to thaw out decades of frozen bilateral relations. The protocols must be approved by the two countries' respective parliaments, and full normalization may still be thwarted by Armenia’s dispute with Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey, over Nagorno-Karabakh. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is set to tell Parliament about the protocols next week. Gul went to Yerevan last year to watch the Turkish National Soccer Team play, and has urged his Armenian counterpart to return the gesture without any preconditions, as he did.