Turkish President To Travel To Armenia

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.