Turkey FM Heading to Armenia

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Friday he is heading to Armenia next week on his first visit since the failure four years ago of efforts to normalize ties.

The two countries remain deeply at odds over the mass killings of Armenians during World War I and the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region.

Davutoglu's visit will be the first since October 2009 when moves to open diplomatic ties and reopen the border came to nothing.

He will be attending a meeting of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation forum in Yerevan on December 12 but it is not known if he will hold separate bilateral talks with Armenian officials.

"In the past, we met with the Armenian foreign minister and can meet any time," Davutoglu said. "We are ready to meet with everyone everywhere to discuss steps for peace in the south Caucasus."

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern Turkey, was falling apart.

Turkey says 500,000 died in fighting and of starvation during World War I and categorically rejects the term genocide.

Ankara had closed the border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with regional ally Azerbaijan in its festering dispute with Yerevan over Nagorny Karabakh.

The territory is internationally recognized as Azerbaijan's but was seized by Armenia-backed separatists in a 1990s war that killed 30,000 people.

Davutoglu announced the trip after meeting Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Kiev on Thursday, Turkish press reports said.

Davutoglu also met his Azeri counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the Nagorny-Karabakh issue which Ankara considers key for a thaw in relations with Yerevan.

From Armenia, the Turkish minister will visit Greece on December 13 and Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus the following day.