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Armenia Hopeful About Start Of Turkey's EU Talks

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  • Armenia Hopeful About Start Of Turkey's EU Talks

    ARMENIA HOPEFUL ABOUT START OF TURKEY'S EU TALKS
    By Emil Danielyan

    Armenialiberty.org, Armenia
    Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
    Oct 4 2005

    Official Yerevan expressed hope late Tuesday that Turkey will be more
    interested in normalizing relations with Armenia and recognizing the
    Armenian genocide after the difficult start of its membership talks
    with the European Union.

    "Armenia hopes that the start of the EU accession process will prompt
    [Turkey] to open the border with Armenia as soon as possible and to
    make real efforts to protect minority rights and uphold freedom of
    speech and other democratic values and standards in the country,"
    Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamlet Gasparian said in a statement.

    "We also hope that during the process Turkey will recognize the
    Armenian Genocide, something which the European Parliament deemed
    a precondition for Turkey's membership of the EU in its latest
    resolution," said Gasparian.

    The resolution adopted on September 28 "calls on Turkey to recognize
    the Armenian genocide" and "considers this recognition to be a
    prerequisite for accession to the European Union." It also urges
    Ankara to drop preconditions for improving its strained ties with
    Yerevan. The demands were rejected by Turkish leaders, with Prime
    Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledging to "continue on our way."

    Armenia has repeatedly urged the EU make Turkish membership conditional
    on genocide recognition and the lifting of the Turkish blockade imposed
    in 1993. But EU officials say while the Armenian demands will be on
    the agenda of the accession talks, they are not a precondition for
    Turkish's accession to the union, which is strongly opposed by the
    Armenian Diaspora in Europe.

    Hundreds of Armenians demonstrated on Monday outside a government
    building in Luxembourg where the foreign ministers of the 25 EU
    member states were discussing terms for the start of the accession
    talks. The negotiation process formally began later in the day and
    is expected to take 10 years or more.

    (GI-Photolur photo: Turkish Foreign minister Abdullah Gul, right,
    arrives with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw at the EU
    headquarters in Luxembourg on Monday for a working session with EU
    foreign ministers.)
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