ARMENIA READY FOR TIES WITH TURKEY

Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Source: Swissinfo 19 February 2007
Feb 19 2007

Armenia is ready to establish diplomatic ties with Turkey without
preconditions and create a joint government commission to discuss
Armenian deaths at the hands of Ottoman Turks in 1915, which Yerevan
says was genocide.

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan rejected Turkey’s offer to set up
a joint panel of historians to debate the issue, using an interview
in the daily Le Figaro on Monday to call on Ankara to accept his
suggestion of an intergovernmental commission.

Turkey denies accusations that some 1.5 million Armenians were
massacred during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in World
War One, arguing that Armenian deaths were part of general partisan
fighting in which both sides suffered.

"The normalisation of bilateral relations is the responsibility of
governments, not historians," said Kocharyan, who begins an official
visit to France on Monday.

"That is why we are ready to establish diplomatic relations with
Turkey without preconditions, create an intergovernmental commission
and to discuss all issues, including the most sensitive," he added.

In October, the lower house of the French parliament provoked Turkish
ire by passing a bill making it a crime to deny Armenians suffered
genocide in 1915, a vote Ankara said would damage ties between the
two NATO allies.