Al-Jazeera, Qatar
Saturday 30 April 2005, 19:40 Makka Time, 16:40 GMT

Armenia rejects Turkish ties offer

Armenians insist 1915-1923 killings were genocide

Armenia has rejected a conditional proposal from Turkey to establish
political relations.

The proposal by Turkey’s prime minister, made in the Turkish daily
Milliyet on Friday, “does not contain anything new”, said Armenian
presidential spokesman Viktor Sogomonyan on Saturday.

“We have proposed to establish diplomatic relations without
preconditions, and examine outstanding issues between our two
countries within the framework of an inter-governmental commission,”
Sogomonyan said.

Armenia insists that the killings of Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman
empire during the first world war was a genocide and has refused to
restart relations conditional on agreeing to review what it says is
fact.

Pressure

Turkey, which denies a genocide was committed, has been opening up on
the subject under pressure from the European Union ahead of
negotiations on its membership in the bloc.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Milliyet that Turkey
might establish political ties if Armenia agreed to his proposal for
investigating the events.

“Political relations might be established on one side and studies
(about killings) can continue on the other side,” the paper quoted
Erdogan as saying.

Erdogan invited Armenia to set up joint research committee

In early-April, Erdogan invited Armenia to set up a joint research
committee.

Kocharian responded by saying ties should be formed first, according
to Turkish newspapers.

Armenians say some 1.5 million of their people were killed as the
Ottoman empire forced them from eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923
in a deliberate campaign of genocide.

Turkey says the death count is inflated and insists that Armenians
were killed or displaced in the civil unrest during the collapse of
the Ottoman empire.

Meanwhile, the head of the Armenian national archives, Amatuni
Virabyan, on Saturday said that the first Turk to be allowed to carry
out research there, Ektan Turkyelmaz, from Duke University in the US
state of North Carolina, would begin work on Monday.