TURKISH MEDIA RESPONSE TO SARGSYAN-ERDOGAN MEETING

Tert.am
13.04.10

Turkish media has widely covered Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s visit to Washington and his meeting with Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan over the Armenia-Turkey normalization.

According to local daily Turkish Sabah Sargsyan demanded Erdogan to
avoid making statements that link the Armenia-Turkey normalization
to the Nagorno Karabakh issue. Erdogan has responded saying Turkey
does not link these two processes.

"Our objective is establishing stability in the region. There has
been progress in the Minsk Group mediating process," Erdogan was
quoted as saying.

Turkish local daily Hurriyet writes that Erdogan reaffirmed Ankara’s
stance of backing Azerbaijan’s viewpoints till the end.

"While Yerevan declared that the Karabakh conflict, not mentioned in
the Protocols, cannot be a pre-condition. With that regard Erdogan has
stressed that they want to see positive steps in the Karabakh issue,
and that Ankara is not going to make any concessions over that issue,"
writes Hurriyet.

Hurriyet also mentioned that Sargsyan and Erdogan discussed the details
of the letters Erdogan’s special delegate Feridun Sinirlioglu handed to
the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents during his visits to Yerevan
and Baku, as well as the US congressional resolution recognizing the
Armenian Genocide.

In reference to Sargsyan’s speech delivered at the tomb of US former
President Woodrow Wilson, the newspaper furthermore writes that is
has roused serious worries among Turkish diplomats.