Armenia ready for diplomatic relations with Turkey

The Armenian President, Robert Kocharyan, has said that his country was ready to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey “without any prior conditions”. He made the statement in an interview to France's Le Figaro newspaper.

“Armenia is ready to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey without any prior conditions. We are calling on Ankara to create a joint governmental commission to discuss the mass slaughter of Armenians which took place in the Ottoman Empire in 1915,” Mr Kocharyan said.

The President stressed that governments and not historians were responsible for improving relations between countries.

Though Turkey denies what Armenia calls the genocide of its people when about 1,5 million Armenians died.