YEREVAN HOPES TURKISH PRESIDENT WILL ARRIVE IN ARMENIA

Interfax
July 30 2008
Russia

YEREVAN. July 30 (Interfax) – Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard
Nalbandian said he hopes that the president of the neighboring Turkey
would visit Yerevan.

"Despite all the statements made by Turkey, we are ready to conduct
a policy aimed at establishing bilateral relations," Nalbandian told
a press conference on Wednesday.

"Our proposals were welcomed by the international community. Hopefully,
they will be approved in Turkey, and its president will come to
Yerevan," the Armenian foreign minister said.

The arrival of the Turkish president "would help to find ways of
solving the existing problems between our countries," he said.

Earlier, Armenian President Serzh Sagsyan invited his Turkish
counterpart to the football match between the Armenian and Turkish
national teams, which will take place in Yerevan as part of the
qualifying matches for the 2010 World Championship.

"This is not about making some concessions at all. Today the ball is
in the Turkish court – we have made a proposal and are waiting for a
reply. We wish to stabilize our relations with Turkey, we want open
borders and must have diplomatic relations without pre- conditions,"
the Armenian foreign minister said.

The Armenian authorities "will neither today nor tomorrow be able to
make steps that might question the Armenian genocide," he added.

There are currently no diplomatic relations between Armenia and
Turkey. In 1993, Turkey closed its border with Armenia. As a
precondition for stabilizing the relations, Turkey demands that
Armenia drops its efforts to seek international recognition of the
1915 Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire and to make considerable
concessions on the issue of the Karabakh conflict.