ARMENIAN PM WELCOMES TURKISH DIALOGUE REQUEST

Turkish Press
April 30 2008

YEREVAN – 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 Sunday.

The two neighbors have no diplomatic links after Ankara severed ties
in protest against Armenian occupation 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 a letter to
Armenia calling for dialogue. Armenia is a mainly Christian state
of around three million on the edge of the Caucasus which hosts a
pipeline pumping oil to Europe from Asia.

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