Interfax News Agency, Russia
May 6 2008
Yerevan ready to restore relations with Turkey – Foreign Minister
YEREVAN May 6
Armenia and Turkey need to establish bilateral relations without any
preconditions, said Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandian.
"For its part, Yerevan is ready to establish relations with Ankara
without any preconditions. The whole region, our nations will benefit
from it," the Armenian foreign minister said at a meeting with his
French counterpart Bernard Kouchner in Paris.
The current generation of Turks and Armenians have inherited a big
problem, and "in order to turn this dark page our political leaders
must make a step towards each other with all responsibility,"
Nalbandian was quoted as saying by the Armenian Foreign Ministry’s
spokesperson on Tuesday.
Ankara refuses to establish diplomatic relations with Yerevan unless a
number of demands are met: in particular, it wants Armenia to abandon
plans to seek international recognition of the Armenian genocide in
the Ottoman Empire and to make serious concessions to Azerbaijan on
the Karabakh issue.
The Armenian-Turkish border has been closed on the initiative of
Ankara since 1993.