Turkish slyness and disappointment

Yerkir/am
May 20, 2005

It seems that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s letter to the Armenian
president sent weeks ago and Kocharian’s response to it have become a
kind of a center for the speculations on the Armenian-Turkish
relations.

Every now and then, Turkey circulates the thoughts expressed in the
letter, trying to prove at any price that the Armenian Genocide issue
should be left for historians. Moreover, the Turkish side proposed to
hold a gathering of Armenian and Turkish scholars to settle the issue.

In addition, a possible meeting between Kocharian and Erdogan was
persistently discussed; Turkey’s Foreign Minister Gul did not rule out
such a possibility, and the Turkish press was continuously raising the
issue. The predictions of the Turkish press, which presented the
desirable as a fact, did not come true and the foreign ministry’s
plans evaporated.