Armenia ready to discuss ties with Turkey – speaker

Interfax news agency, Moscow
14 Apr 05

ST PETERSBURG

Armenia is trying to establish normal partnership relations with
Turkey and to discuss jointly and find mutually acceptable solutions
to existing painful issues of bilateral relations, the speaker of the
Armenian National Assembly, Artur Bagdasaryan, has said.

“Today Armenia is in fact blockaded by Turkey. But a country, which is
trying to integrate into the European Union, must give up its policy
of double standards with regard to Armenia,” Artur Bagdasaryan said in
reply to questions from Interfax news agency at a news conference on
14 April on the results of the 25th plenary session of the CIS
Interparliamentary Assembly.

Artur Bagdasaryan recalled that this year marks the 90th anniversary
of the Armenian genocide. “I do not think that additional discussions
are needed. I think that we all must condemn the crimes that were
committed against humanity, because many countries and parliaments of
the world have already done so. We think that Turkey must also
recognize it,” the speaker announced.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a message to Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan on 13 April offering to set up a joint
commission to investigate the facts of the 1915 Armenian genocide.

[Passage omitted: Turkey is refusing to recognize the genocide]