YEREVAN (AFP) -- Armenia's defense minister joined calls on Friday for the border between his country and Turkey to be reopened as a step towards normalizing relations.

"I support this and I think that in the near future (the closure) will change. I think that relations need to be established with Turkey without any preconditions," Defense Minister Serzh Sargasian told journalists in the Armenian capital Yerevan.

The 355-kilometer (221-mile) border was closed in 1993 at the height of the Nagorno Karabakh war in which ethnic-Armenian separatists in Azerbaijan took over almost a fifth of Azeri territory.

Armenia fully backed the separatists, while Turkey gave diplomatic support to Azerbaijan. Sargasian, who is considered likely to run for president in 2008, echoed comments made Thursday by the deputy foreign minister, Gegam Garibdzhanian, that "Armenia is ready to open the border with Turkey."

Last weekend, business and political delegates at a Turkish-Armenian conference in Yerevan said that opening the border would increase Turkey's access to the Turkic-speaking countries of Central Asia, where Ankara has sought a greater role since the Soviet Union's 1991 collapse.

They said it would also increase trade and boost tourism. Armenians visit Turkey on holiday in large numbers, despite the lack of diplomatic ties.

Ankara recognised Armenia's independence in 1991 but the two sides did not establish diplomatic ties. Turkey's drive to join the European Union has drawn greater attention to its relationship with its eastern neighbor in the strategic Caucasus region.