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ANKARA: Turkey Extends Condolences To Armenia Over Accident

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  • ANKARA: Turkey Extends Condolences To Armenia Over Accident

    TURKEY EXTENDS CONDOLENCES TO ARMENIA OVER ACCIDENT

    New Anatolian, Turkey
    May 4 2006

    Ankara yesterday set aside its deep political differences with
    neighboring Armenia to extend sympathy over the tragic death of
    Armenian citizens in a jet crash.

    Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul sent a message to his Armenian
    counterpart Vartan Oskanian and expressed sincere condolences to
    relatives of Armenian citizens killed in the crash, The New Anatolian
    learned.

    Turkey and Armenia do not have diplomatic relations and the two
    countries are at odds over the Armenian claims of genocide. The
    Armenian diaspora accuses the Ottoman Empire of deliberately massacring
    up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1919. Turkey stresses
    that these figures are inflated and says that far fewer Armenians
    died, due to civil unrest under the conditions of World War I and
    the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Ankara suspended its diplomatic
    relations with Yerevan a decade ago due to Armenian occupation of
    the Azeri territories of Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Turkish sources confirmed to The New Anatolian yesterday that Gul's
    message of condolence to Oskanian would be sent to Yerevan through
    diplomatic channels. They didn't provide any more details.

    Last year, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter to
    Armenian President Robert Kocharian suggesting putting an end to
    the dispute over genocide claims through a joint study of Turkish
    and Armenian scholars. But the Armenian president turned down the
    suggestion, asking first that Ankara revive diplomatic relations and
    discuss all issues of concern on an intergovernmental platform. At
    that time, the messages were sent through the embassies of both
    countries in neighboring Georgia.

    Clash leaves 113 dead

    A total of 113 people are dead after an Armenian-owned Airbus plunged
    into the Black Sea in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

    According to the report by RIA Novosti news agency, the A-320
    passenger jet, which was flying from Yerevan to an airport servicing
    the popular Russian resort of Sochi, disappeared from radar screens
    at 2:15 a.m. local time (Tuesday, 10:15 p.m. GMT).

    Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said that the most likely
    cause of the crash was bad weather -- the Armavia Airlines plane
    had reportedly been trying to make its second landing attempt in
    heavy rain -- and an expert with Russia's Air Traffic Organization
    concurred that poor visibility may have caused the accident.

    "These were the actual weather conditions at the moment of the crash:
    the lowest level of cloud lay at 100 meters, visibility was at four
    kilometers, and it was raining heavily," the expert said.

    Prosecutors ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack and a
    representative of the Interior Ministry in the southern Krasnodar
    Territory said investigators were considering three possibilities.

    "We are considering several versions: a mistake made by the pilot,
    a technical malfunction or a mistake by air traffic controllers,"
    Igor Zhukov of the North Caucasus transport police said.

    However, Artyom Movsisyan, the head of Armenia's main civil aviation
    department, ruled out the possibility of a technical error. He said
    the A-320 had undergone a complete technical overhaul last month
    and experts from Sabina Technics had given a positive report on its
    technical condition shortly before takeoff.

    Movsisyan said the plane had been filled with 10 metric tons of fuel
    and a flight to Sochi lasting less than an hour needed only 3.5 tons.
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