Turk pres to accept the invitation of Sargsyan to visit Armenia: report
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Turkish President Abdullah Gul has accepted an invitation from his Armenian counterpart to watch the World Cup qualifier between the Turkish-Armenian national teams in Yerevan as the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the visit would contribute to renewed relations between the two countries, Vatan daily reported on Saturday. (UPDATED)
The president’s acceptance of the Armenian invitation does not harm Turkey’s stance regarding the Armenia issue, on the contrary, his attendance shows Turkey’s good will to solving the problem, the report said, citing a foreign ministry assessment of the invitation.
Armenia President Serz Sargsyan had invited Gul to watch the World Cup qualifying match between the two country's national teams on Sept. 6 to mark "a new symbolic start in the two countries' relations".
Gul had previously said that Sargsyan’s invitation is an example of contributions towards solving the problems that exist between the two countries and that an evaluation of the invitation was underway taking every possibility into account.
Although Turkey is among the first countries to recognize Armenia when it declared its independence, there are no diplomatic relations between two countries as Armenia continues to press the international community to admit the so-called "genocide" claims, instead of accepting Turkey's call to investigate the allegations, and its invasion of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory due to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue despite U.N. Security Council resolutions on the issue.