Kocharian urges establishment of diplomatic ties with Turkey

Stressing that diplomatic relations should be established without preconditions and prejudices, Kocharian claimed that although his country had suggested to Turkey the establishment of diplomatic relations, Ankara refused. "Our suggestion is still valid," he said in a speech at a meeting organized by the Bertelsmann Association in Berlin, where he also met on Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Touching on Armenian's relations with its neighbors, Kocharian also said, "Turkey, which is an important state in its region, closed its borders to Armenia. An important country like Turkey should follow a different approach."

The Armenian president dismissed the Turkish proposal to establish a joint commission of historians to study the Armenian genocide claims as a "Turkish ploy" by which he claimed Ankara will try to distance itself from the core of the alleged issue.

Kocharian made the remarks in response to former German Ambassador Dietrich Kyaw, who asked him why he had rejected Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan's proposal of a historians' commission to examine the genocide allegations.

Kocharian also stated that Yerevan wants the establishment of a commission of politicians instead of a commission of historians and said, "Politicians, not historians, have responsibility for the 'genocide'."

Kocharian also claimed that the disputed enclave of Nagorno Karabakh declared its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the enclave has never been a part of Azerbaijan.

Stating that Nagorno Karabakh young people have grown up with the will to live in an independent state and won't retreat from the ways things are, Kocharian underlined the need for the concerned sides in the region to be ready for a solution in Nagorno Karabakh before the EU makes new initiatives.

Kocharian stressed that no country that had gained its independence will give up this right and added, "The people of Nagorno Karabakh also fought for for their independence and won it. Therefore they don't want to lose it."

Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous region in Azerbaijan that has been under the control of Armenian and ethnic-Armenian Karabakh forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year separatist war that killed about 30,000 people and drove about 1 million from their homes. The region's final status remains unresolved, and years of talks under the auspices of international mediators have brought few visible results.

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Namik Tan on Friday lambasted the claim of the Armenian Foreign Ministry, saying, "The claim that Kocharian's letter to Erdogan in 2005 did not get a response is another example of the Armenian aim to distort the facts."

Bringing up Erdogan's proposal to setup a commission composed of Armenian and Turkish historians to study the genocide claims, Tan said, "While the situation is like that, the Armenian Foreign Ministry claimed on Nov. 4 that Kocharian's letter to Erdogan did not get a response. However, the concerned Turkish and Armenian officials have gathered three times since April 2005, and our latest proposal was conveyed to Yerevan this September. Therefore, the latest claim of the Armenian Foreign Ministry is another example of the Armenian aim to distort the facts." The New Anatolian