Agence France Presse
Sept 7 2008

Turkish, Armenian ministers to meet later this month: Yerevan

YEREVAN (AFP) ‘ The foreign ministers of estranged neighbours Armenia
and Turkey will meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General
Assembly at the end of September, Armenia said Sunday.

The announcement of the meeting later this month between Armenia’s
Eduard Nalbandian and Turkey’s Ali Babacan came the day after a
landmark first ever visit by a Turkish leader to Yerevan.

"The ministers have agreed to a meeting at the end of September in New
York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly," a statement from
the foreign ministry said.

"The Armenian and Turkish ministers have expressed their willingness
to normalise bilateral relations. They have underlined that all
necessary measures should be taken towards that end," the statement
added.

The move follows a meeting in Yerevan on Saturday between Turkey’s
President Abdullah Gul his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian, who
pledged to overcome decades of enmity between their two nations.

Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic ties and their border has been
closed for more than a decade. Their relationship has been strained by
deep differences over the World War I massacres of Armenians under the
Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of Turkey.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their people were systematically
killed by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1917 as their empire fell
apart — a claim supported by several other countries.

Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that 300,000-500,000
Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when
Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided
with invading Russian troops.