US OFFICIAL URGES TURKEY TO OPEN BORDER WITH ARMENIA
ASSA-IRADA
Published: May 02, 2007
The United States believes that Turkey should open the border and
establish normal relations with Armenia, US Assistant Secretary of
State Daniel Fried has said.He praised the opening of the Armenian
Akdamar church in Turkeys Van province. We welcome the Turkish
governments step to restore an Armenian church in the eastern
part of the country. Even if the church operates just as a museum,
this step by Ankara is worthy of praise, he told a news conference
in Washington. Fried stated that anti-nationalist tendencies are
intensifying in Turkey. After the killing of Hrant Dink [ethnic
Armenian journalist] by extremists, about 100,000 Turks took to the
streets chanting we are all Armenians, we are all Hrant. These were
slogans against nationalism. It is good to see such tolerance in the
Turkish society, the US official said.The controversial editor-in-chief
of the Armenian-speaking Agos newspaper, Hrant Dink, was gunned down
while he was leaving the editorial office in Istanbul in January.The
assistant secretary said the Turkish government has never threatened
or blackmailed Washington over the adoption of a resolution on the
so-called genocide of Armenians by the US Congress. I can assure you
that Turkey has never declared it will take retaliatory steps if the
resolution is passed. Ankara only said the Turkish public will term
the move as an insult.Turkey simply warned that should the US Congress
pass the resolution, its parliament would take similar steps against
the United States. This is not blackmail, but a rather different
approach, said Fried.Armenians say Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million
people in 1915, a claim strenuously denied by the Turkic world.