President Abdullah Gul, seen here in August 2008, on Saturday becomes the first Turkish head of state to visit Armenia and Ankara hopes his trip to attend a football match will heal old wounds over the massacre of Armenians by Turkish forces. (AFP/File/Adem Altan) From Yahoo News/AP:
ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish President Abdullah Gul will travel to Armenia to watch a soccer match between the countries' national teams, his office said Wednesday, in a sign of a thaw in relations between the two historic foes.
Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations because of Turkey's opposition to Armenia's occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.
The rivalry also stems from Armenia's insistence that the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million ethnic Armenians around the time of World War I be recognized as genocide. Turkey says the killings occurred at a time of civil conflict and that the casualty figures are inflated.
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My Comment: These two peoples have a terrible history. I guess a soccer game is a good place to start a dialogue.
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