OSKANIAN CALLS ON USA TO PUT PRESSURE ON TURKEY

AZG Armenian Daily #108, 14/06/2005

Armenia-Turkey

Foreign minister of Armenia called on the United States to get more
actively involved in establishing natural relations between Armenia
and Turkey and especially to exert pressure on Turkey to open its
border with Armenia, Associated Press quoted Vartan Oskanian after
his meeting with Condoleezza Rice last week.

Foreign minister Oskanian said that the US should urge Turkey “to
become a bridge not only between the East and the West but also
between different parts of Europe”. “Armenia and Turkey are not in
state of war. We have no problem with that country. We have historic
differences. Germany and France also have historic differences about
which they talk but they do not close borders”, Oskanian stated
in Washington.

Oskanian emphasized that the international recognition of the Armenian
Genocide still tops Armenia’s foreign agenda. “Argentine, Canada,
France, Poland and Russia are among the states recognizing the Genocide
but the Bush administration keeps on treating it suspiciously”,
Oskanian said.