ACCORDING TO PETER SEMNEBY, TURKS DID NOT COME TO ARMENIA BECAUSE OF THEIR RELIGIOUS HOLIDAY

Noyan Tapan
Dec 19 2007

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The reason for the Turkish side’s
not participating in the December 19 hearings "Armenian-Turkish
Relations.

Problems and Prospects" in the RA National Assembly is that these
hearings coincided with one of the major religious holidays in
Turkey. Stating this opinion, the EU Special Representative for the
South Caucasus Peter Semneby expressed a hope that such discussions
will be held in the future too, and both the Armenian and Turkish
sides will take part in them. He said that EU welcomes any proposal
to organize such discussions.

The key problem, according to the EU representative, is that there are
few contacts between the sides, they do not understand and do not trust
each other. In his opinion, in case of overcoming these obsatcles,
it will be much easier to reach an agreement on establishing a dialog.

In response to reporters’ question, P. Semneby said that he does not
intend to visit Nagorno Karabakh in the near future. He added that
the date of the next visit has not been determined yet.