TURKEY’S UNDER-21 TEAM PLAYS IN YEREVAN

Today’s Zaman
Aug 20 2008
Turkey

The Turkish National Under-21 Football Team departed yesterday for the
Armenian capital to play today with the Armenian National Under-21
Football Team, as both are members of the Second Selection Group in
the 17th Under-21 European Championship.

The match between the two teams will kick off at 7 p.m. Turkey time
at Yerevan’s Hrazdan Stadium.

Armenia decided on Thursday to unilaterally suspend its visa regime
with Turkey to facilitate the arrival of Turkish fans for the upcoming
first-ever match between the two countries’ national football teams,
in a fresh overture to Ankara. The Armenian government stated that
Turkish citizens traveling to Armenia from Sept. 1-6 would not be
required to obtain entry visas. Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan
invited President Abdullah Gul to a World Cup qualifying match between
the national soccer teams of the two countries in Yerevan on Sept. 6,
calling for dialogue to help normalize ties and saying this would
be mutually beneficial. Over the weekend, Gul said that he was still
assessing whether to respond positively to the invitation.

Both diplomats at the Foreign Ministry and officials close to the
Cankaya Presidential Palace are tight-lipped on whether Gul will
accept Sarksyan’s invitation, which has prompted international media
to refer to the current state of affairs as "soccer diplomacy."