ARMENIA STARTS PARLIAMENTARY HEARINGS ON TIES WITH TURKEY

Mediamax Agency, Armenia
Dec 19 2007

Yerevan, 19 December: Two-day parliamentary hearings on the topic of
"Armenian-Turkish relations: problems and prospects" began in the
National Assembly of Armenia today.

The chairman of the standing parliamentary committee on foreign
relations, Armen Rustamyan, said that the hearings were aimed at broad
discussion of the reasons for the existing crisis in Armenian-Turkish
relations and specification of the possibilities and mechanisms for
using parliamentary diplomacy to settle it, Mediamax reports.

Officials from state agencies of Armenia and [breakaway] Nagornyy
Karabakh attend the hearings, as well as representatives of diplomatic
missions and international organizations in Yerevan, members of
political parties, NGOs and mass media.

Armen Rustamyan said that invitations were sent to 20 Turkish state
officials and public figures to take part in the hearings. These
included Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and writer Orhan Pamuk,
the recipient of the Nobel Prize.

"For various reasons all invitations were turned down. However,
Orhan Pamuk welcomed the fact that such hearings are being held,"
the Armenian MP said.

Responding to a question from Mediamax, the special representative of
the European Union in the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby, who attended
the hearings, suggested that the refusal of Turks is most likely
connected with the fact that the hearings coincide with a religious
holiday in Turkey.