{"id":13167,"date":"2009-06-17T21:51:35","date_gmt":"2009-06-17T19:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=13167"},"modified":"2023-07-26T11:49:26","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T08:49:26","slug":"syria-offers-to-mediate-turkish-armenian-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2009\/06\/17\/syria-offers-to-mediate-turkish-armenian-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Syria Offers To Mediate Turkish-Armenian Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"caption\" style=\"margin: 0pt; width: 100%; padding: 0pt;\">\n<div class=\"watermark\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo\" src=\"https:\/\/gdb.rferl.org\/458F4C31-ABBB-4965-965E-1C728F4ED059_w393_s.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>Armenia &#8212; The presidents of Armenia and Syria inspect a guard of honor outside the presidential palace in Yerevan on June 17, 2009.<\/p><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"date date_article_gap\">17.06.2009<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">Ruben Meloyan<\/div>\n<p class=\"introduction\"><span class=\"zoomMe\">Syria\u2019s President Bashar al-Assad welcomed Armenia\u2019s rapprochement with Turkey and offered to mediate more fence-mending negotiations between the two neighbors during an official visit to Yerevan on Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"zoomMe\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">\u201cWe in Syria have received with great satisfaction the steps that are aimed at normalization Turkish-Armenian relations,\u201d al-Assad said after talks with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian. \u201cI told the president of Armenia that we are ready to help move forward those relations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">He argued that Syria is in a position to do that because of its \u201cclose relationships\u201d with both Armenia and Turkey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"contentImage floatLeft\" style=\"width: 203px;\">\n<div class=\"watermark\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo\" src=\"https:\/\/gdb.rferl.org\/71D47842-0196-42B5-92C3-527C61F21CC3_w203_s.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"imageCaption\">Armenia &#8212; Presidents Bashar al-Assad (L) of Syria and Serzh Sarkisian of Armenia hold a news conference in Yerevan, 17Jun2009<\/span><\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">Sarkisian did not comment on al-Assad\u2019s offer during their joint news conference. Instead, he praised the current state of Syrian-Armenian ties and stressed the need to boost bilateral economic cooperation. \u201cOur friendship is a good example that must be showcased to both our peoples and others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">One of the two Syrian-Armenian agreements signed after the talks is meant to encourage and protect mutual investments. The two leaders will also open a Syrian-Armenian business forum on Thursday. <span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">Al-Assad met with Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian and visited Yerevan\u2019s Matenadaran museum of ancient manuscripts later on Wednesday. He was not scheduled to visit to the Tsisternakabert genocide memorial to more than one million Armenians massacred in Ottoman Turkey. Foreign leaders visiting Armenia normally lay wreathes there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">Many of the Armenian survivors of the 1915-1918 genocide found refuge in what is now Syria, a fact emphasized by Sarkisian. \u201cThe ancestors of most of the Armenians scattered around the world found salvation from the genocide at Syria\u2019s gates,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\">\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Armenia &#8212; The presidents of Armenia and Syria inspect a guard of honor outside the presidential palace in Yerevan on June 17, 2009. 17.06.2009 Ruben Meloyan Syria\u2019s President Bashar al-Assad welcomed Armenia\u2019s rapprochement with Turkey and offered to mediate more fence-mending negotiations between the two neighbors during an official visit to Yerevan on Wednesday. \u201cWe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":783773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,56,89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenia","category-syria","category-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}