Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb. 22, 2008
Gül congratulates Sarksyan, calls for `normalization’ of ties
President Abdullah Gül yesterday sent a message of congratulation to
Serzh Sarksyan, the winner of Armenia’s presidential elections,
saying that he hoped Sarksyan’s victory would lead to a
"normalization" of relations between their estranged countries.
"I hope your new position … will permit the creation of the
necessary environment for normalizing relations between the Turkish
and Armenian peoples, who have proven over centuries they can live
together in peace and harmony," Gül said in his message, which was
released by the president’s press office. "I sincerely hope that …
an atmosphere based on reciprocal trust and cooperation can be
established that will contribute to regional peace and prosperity,"
Gül noted in the message.
Ankara has recognized Yerevan since the former Soviet republic won
independence in 1991, but nevertheless refuses to establish
diplomatic ties because of Armenian efforts to secure international
condemnation of the controversial World War I era killings of
Anatolian Armenians as genocide. Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of
their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings during the last
years of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey categorically rejects the claims,
saying that 300,000 Armenians along with at least as many Turks died
in civil strife which emerged when the Armenians took up arms for
independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with the Russian troops
that were invading Ottoman lands.
In 1993 Turkey also shut its border with Armenia in a show of
solidarity with its close ally Azerbaijan, which was at war with
Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, dealing a heavy economic
blow to the impoverished nation. Ankara wants Armenia to abandon its
campaign for the recognition of the killings as genocide and make
progress in its dispute with Baku before formal diplomatic relations
can be established.
Groomed by outgoing President Robert Kocharian, Sarksyan has vowed to
continue the policies of the incumbent president.
Sarksyan, a 52-year-old former welder, is from Nagorno-Karabakh — as
is Kocharian, a notorious hard-liner. Nagorno-Karabakh is a territory
inside Azerbaijan that has been controlled by Armenian and local
ethnic Armenian forces since a six-year war which ended in 1994.
Tensions remain high between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Sarksyan was at
Kocharian’s side in the separatist administration during the war.
22.02.2008
Today’s Zaman Ankara