Still a "No"

[Joseph]

http://www.armenialiberty.org/armeniareport/report/en/2007/01/F5D680BF-ADD8-457B-8733-F55CEE1F8A71.ASP

Yerevan Sees No Change In Turkish Policy


By Emil Danielyan

Official Yerevan indicated on Friday that the Turkish government is sticking to its preconditions for normalizing relations with Armenia despite domestic calls for a policy change that followed the shock killing of a respected Turkish-Armenian journalist.

A spokesman for the Armenian Foreign Ministry said Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakosian, who attended Dink’s funeral on Tuesday, met with a senior Turkish diplomat in Istanbul to discuss “possibilities of registering progress in Turkish-Armenian relations.”

“Differences in the parties’ positions on the discussed issues remain,” the official, Vladimir Karapetian, told RFE/RL, commenting on the meeting. Armenia hopes that Turkey “will take steps” to bridge those differences, he said.

The outpouring of sympathy in Turkey for the slain editor of the bilingual “Agos” weekly fueled talk of a possible softening of the long-standing Turkish policy towards Armenia. Turkish media commentators have urged Ankara to stop linking the establishment of diplomatic relations and reopening of the Turkish-Armenian border with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the decades-long campaign for international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide.

While in Istanbul, Kirakosian reaffirmed his country’s readiness to normalize bilateral ties “without any preconditions.” “This is what Hrant Dink was working for and talking about,” he was reported to say.

But Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul made it clear on Wednesday that Yerevan should first “review its negative feelings against us and should not make unjust demands.” "We do not believe we can launch diplomatic ties by setting aside allegations of genocide," said another Turkish diplomat quoted by AFP news agency.

Neither official mentioned the other Turkish precondition: a solution to the Karabakh conflict acceptable to Azerbaijan, Turkey’s main regional ally.

[1.5 million]

So who is insisting on conditions eh?

ANKARA, JANUARY 26, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. Official Ankara does not accept the statement made by Arman Kirakosian, the RA Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs that Armenia is ready to establish with Turkey diplomatic relations without preconditions.

According to the Turkish "Hurriyet" newspaper, the high-ranking officials of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs qualified A.Kirakosian's statement "as speculation of feelings in the case when they arrived in Turkey which is in national mourning on the occasion of journalist Hrant Dink's murder." "Arman Kirakosian's commentary seemed to be the same as the contents of the letter addressed to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan by Armenian President Robert Kocharian in April, 2005," the Turkish diplomates mentioned.

And Erdogan "reminded" that official Yerevan refused the proposal of Ankara concerning bringing to life a joint commission of historians "to discuss insistences" on the Armenian Genocide. "Armenians must first of all respond our proposal, they did not answer us yet. This is not a display of good wish. I do not think that their posture is sincere," the Turkish Prime Minister insisted.

To recap, in response to the above-mentioned proposal of official Ankara, RA President addressed a letter on April 12, 2005 to Erdogan in which he called to bring to life a joint commission which will discuss all the problems relating to the Armenian-Turkish relations, including issues of opening of the border, establishing of diplomatic relations and the Armenian Genocide issues.