BABACAN TELLS OSKANIAN TURKEY OPEN TO DIALOGUE

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Oct 4 2007

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan met on Tuesday with his Armenian
counterpart, Vartan Oskanian, in the first meeting between the two
ministers since Babacan was appointed to his post after the Turkish
general elections held on July 22. The meeting at UN headquarters
in New York was held at the request of Armenia and was mostly a
"greeting" aimed at the two ministers getting to know each other, the
Anatolia news agency reported. The general atmosphere was positive,
and Babacan’s message to his Armenian counterpart was that Turkey is
open to dialogue with Armenia on disputed issues.

The meeting came as the US House of Representatives’ Committee on
Foreign Affairs prepares to debate and vote on a resolution next week
declaring that Armenians were subject to genocide at the hands of the
Ottoman Turks in the beginning of the last century. Babacan said at
the meeting that history could not be written by votes of politicians
in parliaments and brought to mind a proposal Turkey made to Armenia
in 2005 for joint study of that portion of history. The Armenian
minister, for his part, reiterated Armenia’s request for the opening
of its border gate with Turkey, which has been closed for more than
a decade. Ýstanbul Today’s Zaman

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