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Turkey Confirms Contacts With Armenia
Agence France Presse, Arab News
ISTANBUL, 23 April 2005 - Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
yesterday urged him his Armenian counterpart Vardan Oskanian to
respond to goodwill gestures he made at unofficial meetings between
the two countries that have no diplomatic relations. `I've met the
Armenian foreign minister six times, it's no secret. We have no
diplomatic relations but we do have contacts,' said Gul.
Turkish daily Milliyet yesterday said meetings had been held over the
past three years in neutral locations with the aim of establishing a
raft of ten confidence-building measures between the two. Relations
between Turkey and Armenia have been dogged by, among other events,
the mass killings of Armenians during the fall of the Ottoman Empire
(the predecessor of modern Turkey) 90 years ago.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen perished in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was
falling apart.
Ankara counters that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were
killed in `civil strife' during World War I when the Armenians rose
against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian
troops. `We have made one gesture after another, but they have not
reciprocated. They too (the Armenians) have to take steps,' said
Gul. Gul pointed to the opening of air routesbetween the two countries
as one gesture made by Turkey, and a regional trade initiative for
Black Sea cooperation as another.
`In Turkey there are 40,000 Armenians working and saving money to send
home,' said Gul. Turkey wants Armenia to hand back the Nagorno-Karabakh
enclave to Azerbaijan. Armenia seized the Armenian-majority territory
in 1994 after a regional conflict with Azerbaijan. Turkey recognized
Armenia on its 1991 independence but has never established diplomatic
relations with it. Ankara closed its frontier with Armenia in 1993 in
solidarity with Turkish-speaking Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, 17 Turkish coal miners died from methane gas poisoning on
Thursday after an explosion trapped them beneath rubble, the state-run
Anatolian news agency said. Two people were earlier found alive, but
rescue workers had ruled out any more survivors after finding the
bodies of 17 men some 300 meters underground.
The cause of the blast at the state-owned mine near the western town
of Gediz was not immediately clear. A lack of investment in Turkish
mines hasbeen blamed for poor maintenance and shoddy construction that
have led to a series of accidents in the past.
In September, 19 workers were burned to death in the collapsed tunnel
of a copper mine in northern Turkey. The country's worst mining
disaster was in 1992, when 270 miners were killed in a methane gas
explosion near the Black Sea.
Agence France Presse, Arab News
ISTANBUL, 23 April 2005 - Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
yesterday urged him his Armenian counterpart Vardan Oskanian to
respond to goodwill gestures he made at unofficial meetings between
the two countries that have no diplomatic relations. `I've met the
Armenian foreign minister six times, it's no secret. We have no
diplomatic relations but we do have contacts,' said Gul.
Turkish daily Milliyet yesterday said meetings had been held over the
past three years in neutral locations with the aim of establishing a
raft of ten confidence-building measures between the two. Relations
between Turkey and Armenia have been dogged by, among other events,
the mass killings of Armenians during the fall of the Ottoman Empire
(the predecessor of modern Turkey) 90 years ago.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen perished in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was
falling apart.
Ankara counters that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were
killed in `civil strife' during World War I when the Armenians rose
against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian
troops. `We have made one gesture after another, but they have not
reciprocated. They too (the Armenians) have to take steps,' said
Gul. Gul pointed to the opening of air routesbetween the two countries
as one gesture made by Turkey, and a regional trade initiative for
Black Sea cooperation as another.
`In Turkey there are 40,000 Armenians working and saving money to send
home,' said Gul. Turkey wants Armenia to hand back the Nagorno-Karabakh
enclave to Azerbaijan. Armenia seized the Armenian-majority territory
in 1994 after a regional conflict with Azerbaijan. Turkey recognized
Armenia on its 1991 independence but has never established diplomatic
relations with it. Ankara closed its frontier with Armenia in 1993 in
solidarity with Turkish-speaking Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, 17 Turkish coal miners died from methane gas poisoning on
Thursday after an explosion trapped them beneath rubble, the state-run
Anatolian news agency said. Two people were earlier found alive, but
rescue workers had ruled out any more survivors after finding the
bodies of 17 men some 300 meters underground.
The cause of the blast at the state-owned mine near the western town
of Gediz was not immediately clear. A lack of investment in Turkish
mines hasbeen blamed for poor maintenance and shoddy construction that
have led to a series of accidents in the past.
In September, 19 workers were burned to death in the collapsed tunnel
of a copper mine in northern Turkey. The country's worst mining
disaster was in 1992, when 270 miners were killed in a methane gas
explosion near the Black Sea.