Turkey Willing to Consider ‘New Page’ in Ties With Armenia

Voice of America
Turkey Willing to Consider ‘New Page’ in Ties With Armenia

9:31 AM


FILE – Human rights activists hold portraits of victims during a demonstration to commemorate the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, in central Istanbul, Turkey, April 24, 2018.

Turkey’s prime minister says his country would be willing to assess requests for “a new page” in its relations with Armenia.

Binali Yildirim’s comments Friday were in response to reports that Armenia’s new prime minister, Nikol Pashinian, had called for the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two neighbors.

Turkey and Armenia signed a deal in 2009 to establish diplomatic ties and open their common borders but the agreement later collapsed over Turkey and Azerbaijan’s insistence that Armenia withdraw from the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh regions. Armenia’s demands that 1.5 million deaths under the Ottoman Empire be recognized as genocide have also driven a wedge between them.

Yildirim says “if Armenia abandons its hostile stance … if it wants to open a new page, we would look at the details and respond accordingly.”

Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS