Turkey, Armenia in talks on ties

31 May 2006
NTV-MSNBC

Turkey is intending to pursue efforts to normalize relations with Armenia, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Turkey has announced its officials have been meeting with Armenian counterparts to discuss the normalisation of relations between the two countries, a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Minister revealed Wednesday.

While not going into details of the talks, Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan, said that three rounds of discussions have so far been held. “A negotiation process has started between the two countries to seek a common ground,” Tan said.

Armenian MFA Does Not Deny or Confirm Reports on Armenia-Turkey Secret Talks
31.05.2006 16:36 GMT+04:00
PanARMENIAN.Net The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Armenia does not deny or confirm reports on secret meetings between diplomats of Armenia and Turkey, acting Spokesperson of the Armenian MFA Vladimir Karapetyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter. «Armenian and Turkish diplomats contact at various levels,» he said.According to Turkish sources, after the letter sent by Turkish PM Erdogan to Armenian President Kocharian «three secret meetings» were held between diplomats of those countries. «The latest round of talks, was held under the auspices of the European Troika in Vienna in closed regime,» the New Anatolian agency reports. here.

The two countries do not have formal diplomatic ties, with one of the main stumbling blocks being Armenian claims that the Ottoman empire carried out a systematic slaughter of its Armenian citizens during the years of the First World War. Turkey strongly denied the claims and points to massacres of Turkish civilians in areas of the east of the country by Armenian forces that Allied themselves to invading Tzarist troops during the war. However, Turkish does acknowledge that some 300,000 Armenians dies during the unrest in the region, mainly when being relocated away from the scenes of fighting.

Tan said that the talks were initiated after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote to his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharian calling for the two countries to conduct a joint historical investigation the alleged massacres.

“Turkey is intending to pursue efforts to normalize relations with Armenia”, said Tan during a regular press briefing. “The success of Turkeys efforts to normalise relations depends on a more flexible approach from Yerevan as well as to the overcoming of bilateral and regional problems.”

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.