“The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict stems from keeping the existing status-quo,” Turkish president Abdulla Gul said at a press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, as reported by Regnum information agency with a reference to TRT Turkish TV.

According to him, the status-quo is nobody's interest. “My visit to Armenia has, to some extent, shaken that status-quo. A mild but categorical policy has to be applied. If nothing changes within the next two years then nothing will change in the following decade either. Everything will remain the way it is, and none of the sides will gain anything form that,” said Gul.

Gul visited Armenia in September 2009 in the scope of the “football diplomacy” initiated by Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan. The leaders of the two countries, using the football match between their national leagues, made an attempt to normalize the bilateral relations between Armenia and Turkey. The rapprochement process is currently frozen because of Turkey's attempts to link it with the settlement of the Karabakh issue.