ARMANIAN PRESIDENT PLANS TO INVITE TURKISH PM TO WATCH SOCCER GAME

Hurriyet
June 25 2008
Turkey

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said he has been planning to invite
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to Armenia, Hurriyet daily
reported on Wednesday.

Sargsyan said Armenia would accept Turkey’s proposal to establish a
joint historical commission, in case the border between Turkey and
Armenia has been reopened.

In 2005, Turkey officially proposed to the Armenian government the
establishment of a joint historical commission composed of historians
and other experts from both sides to study together the events of
1915 and to open the archives of Turkey and Armenia, as well as the
archives of all relevant third-party countries and share their findings
publicly. Unfortunately, Armenia has not yet responded positively to
this initiative and Turkey’s proposal remains on the table.

If the commission is established before the opening of the border,
it means that you said yes to the start of an uncertain process of
which consequences would not be estimated," Sargsyan said.

Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic links since Ankara
intensified its protests against Armenian invasion and violence in
the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Armenia invaded in a war with
Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. The border between Turkey and Armenia
has been closed.

Sargsyan added that if the border between two countries is opened,
the work on the commission would be accelerated.

Armenia, with the backing of the Diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million
of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in 1915. Turkey
rejects the claims, saying that 300,000 Armenians along with at least
as many Turks died in civil strife that emerged when the Armenians
took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia.

He also said Armenia was ready to take new steps to normalize the
relations between the two countries, adding he has been planning to
invite Erdogan to Armenia soon.

"We can watch Armenia-Turkey match together, and then discuss bilateral
relations," Sargsyan said.

Turkish and Armenian national football teams are in the same group
in the World Cup 2010 qualifying stage.