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Turkey agrees Armenian request for new flight route

Fatma Demirelli

ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

Turkey agreed to launch a new flight route between its Mediterranean city of Antalya and the capital of neighboring Armenia, in a gesture that could help ease the tension between the two neighboring countries over allegations of a so-called Armenian genocide, Turkish officials said yesterday.

The two countries does not enjoy diplomatic ties but a request by the Armenian private airlines company Armavia for the start of Yerevan-Antalya flights was accepted after an assesment at the Foreign Ministry. A ministry official told the Turkish Daily News that the charter flights between the two cities will be once a week from June till September. He did not give any further details.

Altough it is a temporary one, the Turkish decision came as Armenians living in European countries and in the United States have stepped up efforts to win parliamentary recognition of what they called “Armenian genocide” during the rule of the Ottoman Empire late last century.

Turkey rejects the genocide allegations, saying the Armenians were killed as the Ottoman Empire was trying to quell civil unrest sparked by an Armenian revolt, which claimed the lives of more Turkish Muslims than Armenians. Ankara has called for a joint scholarly study of the allegations and said Ottoman archives were open to all investigators. But Yerevan turned down the offer, saying the genocide was a fact.

Turkish authorities earlier allowed Armenian Airline Armavia to fly between Istanbul and Yerevan. The airline also uses the Turkish air-corridor to fly to other destinations. Antalya is the closest Turkish holiday resort to the landlocked country and the number of Armenians visiting Turkey during the summer time jumps to 50,000 compared to 20,000 in winter, CNN-Turk television Web site reported

Yerevan’s request for fresh flights with Turkey came on the eve of April 24 what Armenians see as the anniversary of the so-called genocide. Some 90 deputies of the U.S. congress have sent a letter to President Bush, urging him to recognize the allegations. But Turkish leaders, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan, looked confident that the Bush administration would prevent such a step since it would severely damage Turkish-U.S. ties.

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