TURKEY BLACKMAILS ISRAEL OVER ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.04.2008 18:47 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee in the Turkish parliament, Hasan Murat Mercan, has asked
the Bureau of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to cancel a scheduled
discussion in the Knesset on the Armenian Genocide.

Mercan was in Israel this week at the head of a Turkish parliamentary
delegation for talks with their Israeli counterparts. Talks included
discussions on Iran, the Palestinians and Syria, but the main issue
the Turkish delegation raised was an upcoming Knesset debate on the
Armenian Genocide.

Advertisement "The Armenian issue is very sensitive for Turkey,"
the visitors told Yoram Turbowicz and Shalom Turgeman, two of Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert’s most senior aides, adding that, "We would
prefer if this discussion would not take place at this time in
the Israeli parliament because it may harm the relations between
the two countries." Turbowicz offered Israel’s official response,
that the issue needed to be resolved between Turkey and Armenia in a
professional manner, through the involvement of historians. "Israel
certainly recognizes the strategic importance of its relations with
Turkey, but there are subjects and parliamentary initiatives that are
not related to the government," Turbowicz said. "As a government,
we have no interest in undermining our ties with Turkey." "I am
convinced that Israel recognizes the negative implications this may
have on ties between the two countries," Mercan said, Haaretz reports.