Interfax, Russia
April 24 2009
Presidents Aliyev, Gul discuss Turkish-Armenian settlement
BAKU April 24
Turkish President Abdullah Gul and his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev
discussed the situation with Turkish- Armenian settlement during a
phone conversation, the Azeri presidential press service reported on
Friday.
During the conversation, which took place on the initiative of the
Turkish president, Gul informed Aliyev that Turkey is conducting
negotiations with Armenia, the press service said.
Aliyev, in turn, communicated to Gul the position of Azerbaijan on the
matter, says the report.
The foreign ministries of Armenia and Turkey and the Swiss Federal
Department of Foreign Affairs issued a joint statement on Thursday,
regarding the settlement of Armenian-Turkish relations and the
preparation of a diplomatic quot;road map.quot;
Armenia and Turkey still have no diplomatic relations. The stumbling
block in relations between the two countries are the events that
occurred in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. The killing of Armenians in
the Ottoman Turkey in 1915, in which over 1.5 million people are
believed to have been massacred, has been recognized as genocide by
several countries. Armenia is demanding that Turkey officially
recognize the events as genocide, but Turkey refuses to do so.
Turkey is demanding that the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan be
respected in the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.