PM sees relaxing with us fllowing Armenian "genocide" row

Speaking to reporters before leaving for a nuclear security summit in Washington hosted by US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday said that strained relations between Turkey and the US due to a US House panel's passage of a resolution urging official recognition of the so-called Armenian "genocide" claims had started to ease. Erdogan said that Turkish-US relations had grown less tense thanks to talks between high-level officials from the two countries after the vote last month. "Our relations are smoother now after the US secretary of state called our foreign minister, and we sent our ambassador back to Washington " after recalling him in the wake of the vote, he said. Erdogan is set to participate in the two-day Nuclear Security Summit in the US capital starting today, along with some 50 other heads of state and government. "Such resolutions do not bind us, and Turkey 's views are clear," he said. Erdogan said Turkey has always stood behind his 2005 letter to then Armenian President Kocharian proposing that the countries set up a joint commission of historians and experts to study the events of 1915 using documents from all relevant international archives. Turkey believes such issues cannot be solved by parliaments but instead should be handled by historians, Erdogan added. Ambassador Namik Tan said on Friday that he returned to Washington after assurances by the Obama administration that it would oppose the congressional action and not itself label the incidents a "genocide." "We received some satisfactory messages. I hope to open a new chapter," he said. On the sidelines of the summit, Erdogan is set to separately meet with Obama and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to discuss how to revive the stalled normalization process between Turkey and Armenia , while asking them to do more to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue between Azerbaijan and Armenia . Stressing the importance Turkey places on making progress through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe 's (OSCE) Minsk Group, Erdogan said, "The Minsk trio should be much more active, and should work to produce a result." He also said he had recently discussed the issue with Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. On the government's proposed constitutional amendment package, Erdogan criticized opposition parties for not being open to compromise on the package, saying that the government is open to all constructive offers. Erdogan also dismissed main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal calling on President Abdullah Gul to put part of the package to a referendum, dismissing this as a trick.