TURKISH OFFICIAL FIGURES EXPRESS INTEREST IN IMPROVAL OF
ARMENIAN-TURKISH RELATIONS, ARMAN KIRAKOSIAN MENTIONS

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, NOYAN TAPAN. The correspondence between Armenian
President Robert Kocharian and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan having started two years ago became in essence the basis of
current Armenian-Turkish unofficial relations. RA Deputy Foreign
Minister Arman Kirakosian declared this at the February 9 press
conference held by the National Press Club within the framework of
Topical Subject program. He reminded that in 2005 April the Turkish
Prime Minister proposed the Armenian President creating a commission
of historians on study of the events of the beginning of 20th century
in the Ottoman Empire. R. Kocharian responded to this proposal that it
is impossible to lay on historians such a complicated and important
task as normalization of relations between two countries and proposed
creating a bilateral intergovernmental commission. In A. Kirakosian’s
words, Turkey puts forward two preconditions for normalization of
bilateral relations. First, pleading "exclusive sensitiveness of
Turkish public" Turkey strives for clarifying the issues connected
with the events of 1915 and only them starting to cooperate. The
second precondition is settlement of Nagorno Karabakh problem: "Turkey
has repeatedly said that it attaches a great importance to solidarity
with Azerbaijan and will not open the border until the final
settlement of this problem." A. Kirakosian reported that during his
stay in Turkey on the days of mourning events dedicated to the memory
of Hrant Dink he had meetings with Turkish official figures, during
which the latters expressed willingness to improve Armenian-Turkish
relations. Besides, in the Deputy Minister’s words, interest of
Turkish businessmen in opening the border is obvious. A. Kirakosian
declared that the Armenian side has always insisted on opening the
border. "But Turkey continues to keep the border closed. The
Kars-Akhalkalak-Tbilisi-Baku project is the continuation of Turkey’s
policy, when the latter together with Azerbaijan decided to bypass
Armenia. The project is the important task of our diplomacy and we are
working at it. We have already achieved foreign states’ refusing to
finance the project."