ARMENIA WELCOMES TURKISH DIALOGUE REQUEST

Peninsula On-line, Qatar
April 28 2008

YEREVAN â~@¢ Armenia is ready to start dialogue with Turkey on
improving relations if Ankara does not set preconditions to talks,
Armenia’s new prime minister said yesterday.

The two neighbours have no diplomatic links after Ankara severed ties
in protest against Armenian control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region
over which Armenia fought Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan in a war in the
early 1990s.

"I confirm the readiness of the government of Armenia to engage in
constructive dialogue and establish relations without preconditions,"
the press office of the Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarksyan said
he wrote in a letter to Turkey.

An Armenian backed administration controls the Nagorno-Karabakh
region. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still officially at war over the
mountainous area.

Last week Turkey’s foreign minister said he had sent Armenia a letter
calling for dialogue. Armenia is a mainly Christian state of around 3
million which lies on the edge of the Caucasus which hosts a pipeline
pumping oil to Europe from Asia.

Armenia also accuses Turkey of genocide during violence at the end
of World War One. Turkey denies the accusations and says that both
Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in fighting.

"I assure you that our efforts will be aimed at ensuring peace,
tolerance and stability in our region," Sarksyan told Turkey in
the letter.

Sarksyan took over as prime minister earlier this month. He had
previously been central bank chief.

Meanwhile, the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church yesterday
denounced what he called the world’s "tyrants" who had supported
Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia.

"Kosovo is not only a question of territory," said Patriarch Pavle. "It
is a question of our spiritual being.

"The tyrants of this world know this very well, and accordingly wish
to wound and collectively punish the Serb people," he charged.

"They wish to destroy and crush it… rip its heart out," said the
93-year-old prelate in a message read for him following an Orthodox
Easter service.

Kosovo, whose population is overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian,
unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February and has
been recognised by some 40 countries including the United States and
most European Union members.

The breakaway provoked Serbia’s anger because Kosovo is considered
by Serbs to be the cradle of their religion and culture. "Kosovo is
an integral part of the life of all Orthodox Serbia," the patriarch
said in his message.

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