Armenian president not to attend NATO summit

No progress in bilateral relations was seen in 2003," the press secretary said. "Armenia reiterates its readiness to improve relations with Turkey without preliminary conditions," he said.

Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan will represent the country at Istanbul’s summit.

Heads of state or government of some 46 countries, including U.S. President George W. Bush are to attend the NATO summit in Istanbul, which will welcome seven new members in the alliance’s biggest ever enlargement.

Armenia is working with NATO as part of the alliance’s Partnership for Peace program with some of the former Soviet republics.

Turkey became one of the first countries to recognize the independent Armenia in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union but relations with this country has been severed after Armenian forces occupied Azeri territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. As part of a trade blockade against Armenia, Turkey also keeps its border gate with Armenia closed for the last ten years.

Turkey’s conditions for normalization of relations with Armenia are withdrawal of Armenian troops from Nagorno-Karabakh, Yerevan’s stopping to support Armenian diaspora efforts aimed at international recognition of allegations of an Armenian genocide at the hands of late Ottoman Empire and its renouncing territorial claims on Turkey’s eastern part.