Zaman, Turkey
May 6 2005

Ankara Moderate to Erdogan-Kocharian Meeting
By Suleyman Kurt, Huseyin Akkas

Published: Friday 06, 2005
zaman.com

Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Gul denoted that Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Armenian counterpart
Robert Kocharian may meet in Moscow or Warsaw but nothing has been
planned yet.

The two leaders, who exchanged letters about the Armenian genocide
allegations in April, will participate in the celebrations of the
60th anniversary of the World War II Victory which will be organized
in Moscow on May 9, and they will take part at the European Council
Summit, which will be held on May 15-16 in Poland. Minister Gul
answered the questions concerning the topic at Esenboga Airport
before he left for Kyrgyzstan on Thursday, May 5. Mentioning that he
wanted to call attention to the point, Gul told that after Turkey
recognized Armenia after the disintegration of the Soviet Union,
but there are no diplomatic relations between the two countries now.
Noting that this differentiation should be made clear, the Minister
of Foreign Affairs said negotiations at the presidents level in the
past and negotiations at foreign ministers level are currently being
held. Gul added these kind of negotiations may happen in international
meetings but that nothing has planned yet. US officials, meanwhile,
have also commented on the possibility of talks saying, “It would
be wonderful”. Kocharian met President Suleyman Demirel in Yalta in
1998 and at the Istanbul Summit of Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1999. Mentioning attempts in some
European countries for to criminalize objections to the allegations
of Armenian genocide, Gul said that they are contrary to Europe’s
basic rights.