TURKEY SAYS IT WANTS DIALOGUE WITH NEW ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT
PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)
April 21 2008
Austria
Turkey (AP) – Turkey’s foreign minister said Monday he was seeking
a dialogue with Armenia’s new government to try to normalize ties
between two neighbors that have no diplomatic relations.
Ali Babacan told reporters he had written to his Armenian counterpart
saying that Turkey "is open to dialogue with the aim of normalizing
Turkish-Armenian ties in the new era.
A historical dispute has prevented the two nations from having
diplomatic relations.
Armenia says Turks killed up to 1.5 million Armenians around the time
of World War I, toward the end of the Ottoman Empire, in what it says
should be labeled genocide. Turkey says the killings occurred at a
time of civil conflict and that the casualty figures are inflated.
Turkey also closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during a war
between Armenia and Azerbaijan _ a Muslim ally of Ankara. The move
hurt the economy of tiny, landlocked Armenia.
"Admittedly we have problems, some of which date back 100 years,"
Babacan said, when he was asked about Turkey-Armenia relations
during a news conference with visiting Austrian Foreign Minister
Ursula Plassnik.
"But the only way of overcoming these problems is through dialogue. Our
doors are open to dialogue in this new period," Babacan said.
There was no immediate reaction to Babacan’s comments in Armenia.
But the Armenian Foreign Ministry referred The Associated Press to a
recent interview by newly appointed Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandian
in which he said: "With regard to our relations to Turkey, we have,
on various occasions, expressed our readiness to normalize them
without any precondition.
"The genocide is a dark page of our common history and together we
have to turn this page and together must build a secure future,"
Nalbandian said.
As the result of Armenia’s February election, Serge Sarkisian, a
former prime minister, was sworn earlier this month as the country’s
third president since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Supporters of Sarkisian’s challenger, former President Levon
Ter-Petrosian, and other opposition activists staged mass protests
in the capital, Yerevan, alleging fraud. Clashes later broke out with
police, prompting authorities to declare a 20-day state of emergency,
which was lifted last month.