Agence France Presse
January 17, 2009 Saturday 11:13 AM GMT
Turkey warns US over Armenian massacres dispute: report
ANKARA, Jan 17 2009
Turkey’s foreign minister has warned Barack Obama’s incoming
administration that any US recognition of Armenian massacres by
Ottoman Turks as genocide could derail reconciliation efforts between
the two neighbours.
"It would not be very rational for a third country to take a position
on this issue… A wrong step by the United States will harm the
process," the Anatolia news agency quoted Ali Babacan as saying late
Friday.
Turkey has "never been closer" to normalising ties with Armenia, its
eastern neighbour, and a breakthrough could be secured in 2009, the
minister said.
Obama, who takes office Tuesday, pledged to his Armenian-American
supporters during his election campaign to recognise the World War I
killings as genocide.
Washington has traditionally condemned the massacres, but has so far
refrained from terming them genocide due to concern about straining
relations with Turkey, a NATO member and a key ally in the Middle
East.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915
and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire fell apart, a claim supported by
several other countries.
Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that 300,000-500,000
Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when
Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided
with invading Russian troops.
Babacan said the dispute was among the issues that Ankara and Yereven
had been discussing since reconciliation efforts gathered steam in
September when Turkish President Abdullah Gul paid a landmark visit to
Armenia.
"Turkey and Armenia have never been closer to a plan on normalising
relations," Anatolia quoted Babacan as saying.
The fence-mending process, he said, was boosted by similar
reconciliation efforts between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a close ally of
Turkey.
"The prospect of normalising relations both between Azerbaijan and
Armenia and between Turkey and Armenia in 2009 is not a dream," he
added.
Ankara has refused to establish diplomatic ties with Yerevan on
account of its campaign to have the killings recognised as genocide.
In 1993, it also shut its border with Armenia in a show of solidarity
with Azerbaijan, then at war with Armenia over Nagorny-Karabakh,
dealing a heavy blow to the impoverished nation.
Gul became the first Turkish head of state to visit Armenia when he
travelled to Yerevan in September to watch a World Cup qualifying
football match between the two countries on the invitation of his
Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian.