ARMENIAN LEADER SUGGESTS SETTING UP COMMISSION TO DISCUSS DISPUTES WITH TURKEY
Mediamax News Agency, Armenia
Nov 17 2006
Yerevan, 17 November: Armenian President Robert Kocharyan has said
that Armenia’s suggestion to set up an Armenian-Turkish intergovernment
commission to discuss all disputed issues remains in force.
Kocharyan said this while addressing the German Bertelsmann Foundation
on 16 November, a special Mediamax correspondent reported from Berlin.
The Armenian president recalled that in response to the Turkish prime
minister’s suggestion to set up a joint commission of historians,
he suggested setting up an intergovernmental commission last spring.
Historians cannot be responsible for bilateral relations because
governments are responsible for this, Robert Kocharyan said. "But
the intergovernment commission could have subgroups in one of which
historians of the two countries could be working together," the
Armenian president said.
Robert Kocharyan also said that there is every reason to doubt
the sincerity of Turkey’s suggestions to set up a commission of
historians. He noted that these suggestions intensify when the question
of recognizing the Armenian genocide is discussed in this or another
country or when this issue is raised in the context of the talks on
Turkey’s membership of the European Union. "Thus, Turkey is trying
not to search for ways to solve the problem, but to distract the
international community’s attention from it," Robert Kocharyan said.