KOCHARIAN THANKS LITHUANIA FOR GENOCIDE RECOGNITION
By Anna Saghabalian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep
April 25 2006

President Robert Kocharian thanked Lithuania for its parliament’s
recent recognition of the Armenian genocide as he received his visiting
Lithuanian counterpart, Valdas Adamkus, on Tuesday.

In a resolution overwhelmingly approved last December, the Baltic
state’s legislature, Sejmas, urged Turkey to “recognize historical
facts” and drop its insistence that the 1915 mass killings of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire did not constitute a genocide. The
Turkish government denounced the move.

“The issue is very important for us and it is not just historical
in nature as today our relations with Turkey are burdened by
this historical reality,” Kocharian told reporters after talks
with Adamkus. “I think that recognizing the genocide and coming
to terms with history is extremely important for normalizing our
[Turkish-Armenian] relations.”

He said Yerevan will continue to seek worldwide recognition of
the genocide in collaboration with leaders of Armenian Diaspora
communities.

Adamkus arrived in Yerevan on a official visit which appears to
have focused on ways of restoring economic ties that used to exist
between the two former Soviet republics. They announced plans to hold
a Lithuanian-Armenian business forum in the near future.

A statement by Kocharian’s office said Armenia’s relations with the
European Union, which Lithuania joined two years ago, were also on
the agenda of the talks. Kocharian again stated that his country is
interested in learning from Lithuania’s as well as neighboring Latvia’s
and Estonia’s successful transition to democracy and the free market.

The Lithuanian president, for his part, made a case for political and
economic integration in the South Caucasus. “We have discussed common
regional policies,” he said. “I think it is about time our regions —
the South Caucasus and the Baltic states — joined forces to build a
better future. This is what we call a three-plus-three formula which
I think will become reality after this meeting.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress