NTV, Turkey
May 9 2005
Turkish PM: Meeting with Kocharyan not Certain
Turkey’s Prime Minister said that there were no guarantees that he
would meet with Armenian head state Robert Kocharyan later this
month.
May 9 – The Prime Minister is to attend the ceremonies in Moscow to
mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Speaking on Sunday before flying to Moscow to attend commemorative
services marking the end of World War II, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan that no request had been made for a meeting with
Kocharyan.
`There is no such request. We will anyway shake hands with him in the
ceremonies,’ Erdogan said.
The Turkish premier stressed that the meeting was not on the agenda
but that there was no reason why talks could notoccur in the future.
Turkey and Armenia are both being pushed by the European Union to
resolve their differences, especially over Armenian allegations that
the Ottoman Empire carried out acts of genocide against its Armenian
citizens during World War I, and establish formal relations.
Source: NTV, 9 May 2005