WHITE HOUSE HOPES GUL WILL ACCEPT INVITATION TO YEREVAN – REPORT
AssA-Irada
July 15, 2008 Tuesday
Azerbaijan
The US government hopes that Turkish President Abdullah Gul will
accept the invitation from his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian
to jointly attend a match of the two countries football teams due
in September, Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper said. The report quoted a
White House official as saying that the Bush administration was in
favor of holding discussions on normalizing relations between the two
neighboring states. Sarkisian has lately invited the Turkish president
to Yerevan to watch the 2010 World Cup qualifier on September 7,
in a bid to foster rapprochement in Armenian-Turkish relations. The
border between the two countries has been closed since 1993 on Ankaras
insistence due to Armenias policy of occupation against Azerbaijan,
its lobbying for the recognition of the alleged Armenian genocide and
territorial claims against Turkey. Yerevan has repeatedly declined
Ankaras suggestions to jointly research the 1915 developments in
Ottoman Turkey.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
