{"id":523,"date":"2008-07-06T00:03:45","date_gmt":"2008-07-05T21:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=523"},"modified":"2008-07-06T00:03:45","modified_gmt":"2008-07-05T21:03:45","slug":"genocide-recognition-%e2%80%98still-on-armenia-foreign-policy-agenda%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2008\/07\/06\/genocide-recognition-%e2%80%98still-on-armenia-foreign-policy-agenda%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"Genocide Recognition \u2018Still On Armenia Foreign Policy Agenda\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Genocide Recognition \u2018Still On Armenia Foreign Policy Agenda\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Ruben Meloyan
\nArmenia will continue to seek international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide despite its readiness to agree to the creation of a Turkish-Armenian commission of historians that would study the highly sensitive subject, Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian said on Friday.<\/p>\n

The idea of setting up such a commission was floated by Turkey\u2019s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a 2005 letter to then Armenian President Robert Kocharian. Erdogan said its members should jointly determine whether the mass killings and deportations of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constituted a genocide.<\/p>\n

Kocharian effectively rejected the idea by making a counterproposal to set up a Turkish-Armenian intergovernmental body that would deal with this and other issues of mutual concern.<\/p>\n

In an apparent policy change, his successor, Serzh Sarkisian, indicated this week that Yerevan is now \u201cnot against\u201d the Turkish proposal. But he made clear that the commission of historians can be set up only if Turkey agrees to unconditionally normalize relations with Armenia.<\/p>\n

In Nalbandian\u2019s words, this does not mean that Armenia will no longer encourage and endorse efforts by the worldwide Armenian Diaspora to have foreign governments and parliaments recognize the slaughter of more than one million Ottoman Armenians as genocide. \u201cThe genocide issue remains on our agenda,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Turkey has cited Yerevan\u2019s support for the genocide recognition campaign as one of the reasons why it keeps its border with Armenia closed and refuses to establish diplomatic relations with the latter. Ankara maintains that the 1915-1918 mass killings occurred on a much smaller scale and were not part of a premeditated government effort to exterminate the Ottoman Empire\u2019s Armenian minority.<\/p>\n

\u201cArmenia has repeatedly stated and continues to state that we are ready to establish relations with Turkey without any preconditions,\u201d said Nalbandian. \u201cWe are also ready to discuss all issues of interest to the two countries after the establishment of diplomatic relations and opening of the border.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nalbandian spoke at a joint news conference with Switzerland\u2019s visiting Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey. Switzerland is one of nearly two dozen nations that have officially recognized the Armenian massacres as genocide.<\/p>\n

The Swiss federal parliament adopted a relevant resolution in December 2003, two months after the Turkish government angrily called off Calmy-Rey\u2019s planned visit to Ankara in protest against a similar document passed by the Swiss canton of Vaud. The visit eventually took place in March 2005, with Calmy-Rey publicly urging Turkey to \u201cconduct an in-depth historical research of its own past, especially when the question is so painful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Swiss minister said on Friday that her country stands ready to mediate a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement. \u201cSwitzerland is always ready to play the role of a facilitator if it is asked to by the parties,\u201d she said.
\nRadio Free Europe \/ Radio Liberty \u00a9 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Genocide Recognition \u2018Still On Armenia Foreign Policy Agenda\u2019 By Ruben Meloyan Armenia will continue to seek international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide despite its readiness to agree to the creation of a Turkish-Armenian commission of historians that would study the highly sensitive subject, Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian said on Friday. The idea of setting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":775211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenian-question"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","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=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}