ARMENIAN PRESIDENT PLANS TO INVITE TURKISH LEADER TO YEREVAN
Interfax News Agency
June 24 2008
Russia
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan wants an improvement in relations
with neighboring Turkey and plans to invite Turkish President Abdullah
Gul to Yerevan.
"I will make further steps to stimulate Armenian-Turkish relations and
I will most likely invite Turkish President Abdullah Gul to Yerevan
to watch a football match between the Armenian and Turkish national
teams," Sargsyan told representatives of the Armenian ethnic community
in Moscow.
"Borders must not be sealed in the 21st century. Regional cooperation
would be a better way of asserting stability," he said.
"The Turkish side is proposing to set up a commission that would
study history. We are not against this idea, but the commission can
only appear after the border is opened between our two countries,"
the Armenian president said.
Turkey unilaterally closed the border with Armenia in 1993 and demanded
that Armenia give up international efforts to get the genocide
of Armenians recognized globally, make concessions to Azerbaijan
in settling the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and remove troops from
Nagorno Karabakh.