OBAMA: TURKEY, ARMENIA MUST MOVE BEYOND PAST

WZTV Fox 17
nternational/37b589ef-
April 6 2009
Nashville

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — President Barack Obama says the United States
strongly supports the full normalization of relations between Turkey
and Armenia. He urged both to work through their troubled past in an
honest, open and constructive way.

That was a reference to what many scholars view as the first genocide
of the 20th century, when an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were
killed by Ottoman Turks in the early 1900s.

Obama is telling the Turkish parliament that both Turkey and Armenia
are taking historic and courageous steps to repair relations. But he
also is pressing for an open border. He says it would provide for a
"peaceful and prosperous coexistence" that would serve both countries.