Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan will discuss Armenian claims regarding the incidents of 1915 at a meeting with his Armenian counterpart next week, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
Babacan will hold talks with Eduard Nalbandian in Istanbul on Nov. 24, ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin told Bloomberg News on Thursday. "Everything is on the table," Ozugergin said. "We are not precluding anything. The two leaders will take up bilateral issues, including the 1915 events and perhaps regional issues that could include relations with Azerbaijan."
Armenia, with the backing of the diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in 1915. Turkey rejects the claims saying that 300,000 Armenians, along with at least as many Turks, died in civil strife that emerged when Armenians took up arms, backed by Russia, for independence in eastern Anatolia.
The initiative follows a visit by Turkish President Abdullah Gul to Armenia two months ago, the first such trip by a Turkish head of state. The 1915 incidents were not discussed during the visit, Gul said at the time. There is no diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey, as Armenia presses the international community to admit the so-called "genocide" claims instead of accepting Turkey's call to investigate the allegations, and Armenia's aggression against Azerbaijan.
Turkey has offered to form a joint commission to investigate what has really happened in 1915 and opened up all official archives, but Armenia is dragging its feet in accepting the offer. Turkey is also embroiled in a dispute with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in protest of Armenia's invasion of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory.
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