Report: Turkish, Armenian leaders expected to meet next week

AP Worldstream
May 13, 2005

Leaders of neighbors Turkey and Armenia are expected to meet for rare talks
at a summit next week, a news agency said Friday.

Turkey’s Anatolia news agency said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and Armenian President Robert Kocharian were expected to meet on the
sidelines of a Council of Europe summit scheduled for Monday and Tuesday in Warsaw.
The date of the meeting was not specified.

Turkish and Armenian officials could not immediately confirm the report.
However, Council of Europe spokesman Can Fisek said there were “strong
indications” the leaders would meet.

The talks are widely expected to focus on efforts to promote dialogue between
the two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations.

The two countries sharply disagree over the mass killings of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks during World War I, which Armenians say was genocide.

Erdogan has indicated the countries might establish political ties if Armenia
agreed to join a joint commission to investigate the killings. Armenia says
it is ready to re-establish relations with Turkey, but without any
preconditions.

Armenians say some 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a deliberate
genocidal campaign by Ottoman Empire authorities. But Turkey says that death toll is
inflated and Armenians were killed or displaced in civil unrest during the
collapse of the empire.

The issue has gained new urgency as Turkey seeks membership in the European
Union.