Top Turkish Diplomat In Armenia For Talks

Turkish President Abdullah Gul (left) greets his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian in Bursa in October.

Turkish officials say one of the country's top diplomats is in Armenia today to discuss reconciliation efforts ahead of a meeting next week between Turkish and Armenian leaders in the United States.

Turkey's undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry, Feridun Sinirlioglu, is expected to discuss the two countries' efforts at rapprochement.

Historic agreements were signed in October, but cannot be implemented until they are approved by each country's parliament.

The agreements establish diplomatic ties and open the shared border, which was closed by Turkey in 1993 in protest of Armenia's war with Azerbaijan.

The peace process has been complicated by the Nagorno-Karabakh territorial dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia and demands from Armenia that Turkey recognize the deaths of over a million Armenians during the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

compiled from agency reports