ANKARA, October 14 (RIA Novosti) - Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan arrived on Wednesday in the Turkish town of Bursa to watch a qualifier for the 2010 football World Cup between the two countries.
He said on Monday he had accepted an invitation to the match from Turkish President Abdullah Gul.
Gul attended the reverse fixture in Armenia last year in what has since been dubbed "football diplomacy."
Turkey and Armenia signed on Saturday historic accords on restoring diplomatic relations and opening borders. The documents have yet to be ratified by parliaments amid continued fierce opposition from nationalist parties in both countries.
Armenia's foreign minister said the Armenian-Turkish border could be reopened before the end of this year.
The European Armenian Federation for Justice has spoken out against the accords, saying they fail to take into account issues such as the Turkish genocide of Armenians, the recognition of the borders between Armenia and Turkey, and the Nagorny Karabakh conflict.
Turkey is demanding that Yerevan drop its campaign to have the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 internationally recognized as genocide.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in a show of support for Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking ally of Ankara, following a bloody conflict over Nagorny Karabakh between the two republics.
The region in Azerbaijan, which has a largely Armenian population, has been a source of conflict between the former Soviet republics since the late 1980s and is de facto independent. Azerbaijan strongly opposes normalization of ties between Ankara and Yerevan before the Nagorny Karabakh conflict is resolved.
Armenia and Turkey agreed to a "roadmap" to normalize their relations under Swiss mediation this April. The draft pact between the countries had been backed by the United States and European Union.
