December 19, 2002 - 19:05 AMT
OFFICIAL ANKARA STAND ON NORMALIZING RELATIONS WITH YEREVAN HAS CERTAIN CAUSES
The statement made by Turkish foreign minister Yasar Yakis on "normalizing relations with Armenia in spite of Azerbaijan dissatisfaction" has a significant response among the Turkish society. As reported by "Press-Center.Ru," a number of local media have considered that "such a stand of the new Turkish government may have certain causes." Thus, according to the report of "Anadolu" agency referring to co-coordinator of the Armenian-Turkish business cooperation council Kayan Soyak, the victory of the Justice and Development party (AKP), whose representative Yasar Yakis is, was accepted by the Armenians of Turkey with enthusiasm. Soyak emphasized that AKP was for development of relations with Armenia and pointed out the long-standing ties of the US Armenian diaspora with AKP. In his words, the Armenian diaspora has many times helped to finance the pilgrimages to Muslim sanctuaries of the members of the now ruling Turkish party.