REPORT: ARMENIAN PRESIDENT OFFERS TO SET UP JOINT COMMITTEE WITH TURKEY TO DISCUSS SENSITIVE ISSUES

AP Worldstream
Feb 19, 2007

Armenian President Robert Kocharian renewed his offer to establish
diplomatic ties with Turkey and proposed setting up a joint government
commission to discuss sensitive issues, a French newspaper said Monday.

Kocharian, interviewed by Le Figaro newspaper during a visit to
France, was asked why his country had refused Turkey’s offer to form
a joint research committee to discuss the World War I-era killings
of Armenians, which Armenia considers genocide.

"Normalization of bilateral relations is up to governments, not
historians," Kocharian was quoted as saying.

"That’s why we are ready to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey
without conditions, and to create an intergovernmental commission
and to discuss all questions, even the most sensitive," he said.

Armenia accuses Turkey of genocide in the killings of up to 1.5 million
Armenians during World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
as part of a campaign to force them out of eastern Turkey. Turkey
denies this.

Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations, and the border between
the two countries has been shut since 1993 because of Armenia’s
unresolved conflict with Azerbaijan _ a close Turkish ally _ over
Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory inside Azerbaijan.