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Inter-governmental relations with Armenia on Turkey's agenda

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  • Inter-governmental relations with Armenia on Turkey's agenda

    INTER-GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS WITH ARMENIA ON TURKEY'S AGENDA

    AZG Armenian Daily #099, 01/06/2005

    Turkey

    On April 10, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter
    to Armenian President Robert Kocharian. On April 26, Kocharian sent
    a reply letter. The exchange of correspondence seemed to suggest a
    meeting between two leaders in Warsaw summit of the Council of Europe,
    May 16-17.

    But Armenian President's speech at the summit and Turkish side's
    morbid response stifled all hopes for a meeting. Turkish Prime Minister
    preferred responding to Kocharian's speech in a press conference rather
    than discuss issues face to face. But before the President's speech,
    Turkish side had to officially respond to Kocharian's letter of April
    26. On May 31, Turkish Zaman daily wrote on this occasion in an article
    titled "If Yerevan Does Not Take A Step Forward, Kocharian Will Not
    Get Second Letter", "The correspondence launched between Turkey and
    Armenia after hot discussions over the so-called Armenian genocide
    is falling short because of Yerevan's inappropriate approach. Given
    this situation, Ankara will not reply to Armenian President Robert
    Kocharian's letter. Though PM Erdogan's proposal of 'leaving the
    study of the events of 1915 to historians and other specialists'
    meet Kocharian's 'establishment of diplomatic relations first and
    then discussing all issues' was far from fully satisfying Ankara,
    but it still was taken 'positively'. But during the last month Yerevan
    displayed no approach we hoped for. The failure of Kocharian-Erdogan
    meeting in Warsaw as well as Armenian President's tough stance at
    the CE summit made it impossible to reply to the letter".

    Zaman notes that diplomatic circles complain that "Planes fly from
    Istanbul to Yerevan and Turkish goods enter Armenia via Georgia,
    meanwhile thousands of Armenians work in Turkey but the authorities
    do not inform the people about this".

    Zaman quoted those circles as saying, "The only good news that
    reached Ankara from Yerevan recently was Armenian foreign minister
    Vartan Oskanian's statement about Kars Treaty, 'As long as there
    are no new treaties, ones signed by the USSR are in force'. Ankara
    wants to receive this statement from the RA Foreign Ministry website
    'via official ways".

    This publication of Zaman should be considered kind of a signal. We
    don't exclude that it was launched to check out moods in Armenia. Yet,
    this signal shows that though Ankara avoids diplomatic relations
    with Armenia, establishment of intergovernmental relations is high on
    its agenda. Otherwise Turkey simply would not touch upon Kocharian's
    reply to Erdogan's letter, the Turkish press would not occasionally
    return to RA President's speech in CE summit nor would it write about
    Kocharian-Erdogan might-have-been meeting.

    By Hakob Chakrian

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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