DUTCH QUEEN TO VISIT TURKEY IN FEBRUARY, MARCH

Associated Press Worldstream
January 9, 2007 Tuesday 6:24 PM GMT

THE HAGUE Netherlands

Dutch Queen Beatrix will pay a state visit to Turkey next month to
underscore strong relations between the two countries, the government
information service said Tuesday.

The queen will be accompanied on the visit by her eldest son and
heir to the throne, Crown Prince Willem Alexander, and his wife,
Princess Maxima, who is pregnant with the couple’s third child.

The royals’ itinerary includes trips to Ankara, Istanbul and Kayseri.

No further details were released.

"This visit will affirm and strengthen the close relationship
between the Netherlands and Turkey," the government said in a brief
statement. "The two countries sustain active relations in many areas,
including agriculture, large city policy, criminal justice and police
cooperation, and culture and education."

Relations between the two countries were briefly strained late last
year, before Dutch parliamentary elections, when major parties the
Christian Democrats and Labor both struck ethnic Turk candidates off
their lists of potential new lawmakers for refusing to use the term
"genocide" to describe the killing of Armenians by Turkish forces
during World War I.

The killings of 1 million or more Armenians starting in 1915 has
been the subject of academic and political debate across Europe,
especially in view of Turkey’s application for EU membership.

Most European governments consider it a genocide. Turkey denies the
deaths resulted from systematic slaughter, saying estimates of 1.5
million dead are wildly inflated and that both Armenians and Turks
were killed in fighting during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.