Baku Sun
July 2, 2004

Armenia optimistic for Turkey

YEREVAN (AP) – Armenia Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian said Wednesday
that a brief meeting with the Turkish leader on the sidelines of this
week’s NATO summit convinced him that relations could improve between
the uneasy neighbors.

Oskanian spoke for 10 minutes with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan at the summit in Istanbul, which was also attended by numerous
leaders from non-NATO member states such as Armenia. President Robert
Kocharian had refused to attend, saying that he was dissatisfied with
his country’s relations with Turkey.

`During that meeting I was again convinced that the current Turkish
government sincerely wants to achieve a change for the better in
resolving relations with Armenia,’ Oskanian said, without elaborating.

Armenia and Turkey do not have diplomatic relations. Armenians accuse
Turks of a genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and
1923. Turks claim the number of deaths is inflated and say the victims
were killed in civil unrest.

Armenia and Turkey are also at odds over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region
within Azerbaijan that has been under ethnic Armenian control since a
war that ended in 1994 without a political settlement. Azerbaijanis and
Turks share close ethnic ties, although recently Turkey has expressed a
willingness to improve relations with Armenia.

Oskanian said that he used a separate meeting his with his Turkish
counterpart, Abdullah Gul, to discuss the possibility of resuming
railroad service between their nations. Turkey, which supported
Azerbaijan in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, has maintained an
economic blockade of Armenia, hobbling economic development in this
landlocked ex-Soviet republic.

Oskanian noted, however, that despite gradually developing ties with
Turkey, Armenia would object to Turkey `pretending to be an impartial
mediator’ in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Oskanian also said that he held discussions Wednesday with the U.S.
administration about Armenia’s intention to veto a proposal that would
give Turkey the acting chairmanship of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe in 2007. Oskanian said that Armenia thinks
the role can only be filled by a nation that has diplomatic relations
with all the OSCE’s member states. But he added that Armenia was still
holding talks on the issue.