TURKEY, ARMENIA IN TALKS ON TIES

NTV MSNBC, Turkey
May 31 2006

Turkey is intending to pursue efforts to normalize relations with
Armenia, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

ANKARA – Turkey has announced its officials have been meeting with
Armenian counterparts to discuss the normalisation of relations
between the two countries, a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Minister
revealed Wednesday.

While not going into details of the talks, Foreign Ministry spokesman
Namik Tan, said that three rounds of discussions have so far been
held. “A negotiation process has started between the two countries
to seek a common ground,” Tan said.

The two countries do not have formal diplomatic ties, with one of the
main stumbling blocks being Armenian claims that the Ottoman empire
carried out a systematic slaughter of its Armenian citizens during
the years of the First World War. Turkey strongly denied the claims
and points to massacres of Turkish civilians in areas of the east of
the country by Armenian forces that Allied themselves to invading
Tzarist troops during the war. However, Turkish does acknowledge
that some 300,000 Armenians dies during the unrest in the region,
mainly when being relocated away from the scenes of fighting.

Tan said that the talks were initiated after Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote to his Armenian counterpart Robert
Kocharian calling for the two countries to conduct a joint historical
investigation the alleged massacres.

“Turkey is intending to pursue efforts to normalize relations with
Armenia”, said Tan during a regular press briefing. “The success of
Turkeys efforts to normalise relations depends on a more flexible
approach from Yerevan as well as to the overcoming of bilateral and
regional problems.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress