ARMENIA HOPES THAT AMID EU ACCESSION TALKS, TURKEY WILL RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Associated Press Worldstream
October 5, 2005 Wednesday 4:13 AM Eastern Time

YEREVAN, Armenia

Armenia hopes that Turkey will recognize the early 20th-century
massacre of Armenians as genocide during its accession talks with
the European Union, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

Ministry spokesman Gamlet Gasparian said Yerevan also hoped the talks
would push Turkey to open its border with Armenia and “take real
steps in its country for the full guarantee of rights and freedoms
of national minorities.”

Eastern Turkey was once a heartland of Armenian culture but was
consumed by ethnic conflict as the Ottoman Empire splintered at the
end of World War I.

Yerevan says Turks slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians. Turkey strongly
denies there was any genocide, saying Armenians were killed due to
civil unrest.

Turkey is under pressure from the European Union to address the
genocide issue.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during Christian
Armenia’s six-year war with Muslim Azerbaijan. Landlocked Armenia
says the border closure is devastating its economy.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress