ANKARA, YEREVAN EXCHANGE WARM MESSAGES
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
April 28 2008
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sent a congratulatory
message to his new Armenian counterpart, Prime Minister Tigran
Sargsyan, expressing hopes for a new era that will contribute to
regional peace, stability and welfare.
It is a duty for the two prime ministers to resolve bilateral disputes
through dialogue and within the framework of good-neighborhood
principles, Erdogan said in his message to Sargsyan, the Anatolia
news agency reported yesterday from Yerevan, citing a report by the
Armenia-based Mediamax news agency.
Sargsyan took office as prime minister on April 9 by the decree of
newly elected President Serzh Sarkisian. Referring to presidential
elections held in Armenia in February, Erdogan said that a new era
has opened via those elections and that certain steps for improving
relations could be taken in this new era via Sargsyan’s support.
"I would like to emphasize that earlier proposals introduced by your
side which will contribute to the process [related to improving
relations] are still valid," Erdogan was quoted as saying in the
message, in an apparent reference to his 2005 proposal to Armenia’s
then-President Robert Kocharian for establishing a joint committee
of historians for exploring the controversial 1915 killings of
Anatolian Armenians. In his response to Erdogan, Sargsyan said that
"he believes direct bilateral talks will be helpful for the resolution
of all problems which concern both sides," Anatolia said.
Meanwhile, newly appointed Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian
responded to a congratulatory message he had received from Turkey’s
Foreign Minister Ali Babacan last week.
"I believe that our peoples, who overcame the hard periods of the past,
will build in the future a world of peace and confidence together. We
cannot even imagine a world without peace," Nalbandian said. Last
week Babacan said he had written to his Armenian counterpart, saying
that Turkey was "open to dialogue to normalize Turkish-Armenian ties
in the new era."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
