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Al-Jazeera: Armenia rejects Turkish ties offer

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  • Al-Jazeera: Armenia rejects Turkish ties offer

    Al-Jazeera, Qatar
    Saturday 30 April 2005, 19:40 Makka Time, 16:40 GMT

    Armenia rejects Turkish ties offer

    Armenians insist 1915-1923 killings were genocide


    Armenia has rejected a conditional proposal from Turkey to establish
    political relations.

    The proposal by Turkey's prime minister, made in the Turkish daily
    Milliyet on Friday, "does not contain anything new", said Armenian
    presidential spokesman Viktor Sogomonyan on Saturday.

    "We have proposed to establish diplomatic relations without
    preconditions, and examine outstanding issues between our two
    countries within the framework of an inter-governmental commission,"
    Sogomonyan said.

    Armenia insists that the killings of Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman
    empire during the first world war was a genocide and has refused to
    restart relations conditional on agreeing to review what it says is
    fact.

    Pressure

    Turkey, which denies a genocide was committed, has been opening up on
    the subject under pressure from the European Union ahead of
    negotiations on its membership in the bloc.

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Milliyet that Turkey
    might establish political ties if Armenia agreed to his proposal for
    investigating the events.

    "Political relations might be established on one side and studies
    (about killings) can continue on the other side," the paper quoted
    Erdogan as saying.

    Erdogan invited Armenia to set up joint research committee

    In early-April, Erdogan invited Armenia to set up a joint research
    committee.

    Kocharian responded by saying ties should be formed first, according
    to Turkish newspapers.

    Armenians say some 1.5 million of their people were killed as the
    Ottoman empire forced them from eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923
    in a deliberate campaign of genocide.

    Turkey says the death count is inflated and insists that Armenians
    were killed or displaced in the civil unrest during the collapse of
    the Ottoman empire.

    Meanwhile, the head of the Armenian national archives, Amatuni
    Virabyan, on Saturday said that the first Turk to be allowed to carry
    out research there, Ektan Turkyelmaz, from Duke University in the US
    state of North Carolina, would begin work on Monday.
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