ANKARA, October 14 (RIA Novosti) - The presidents of Armenia and Turkey held talks on Wednesday before attending a World Cup qualifier between their national football teams, in a show of support for a deal to restore ties and reopen the border.
Armenia and Turkey signed historic accords on Saturday on restoring diplomatic relations and opening borders. The documents have yet to be ratified by the parliaments amid continued fierce opposition from nationalist parties in both countries.
Welcoming President Serzh Sargsyan, Turkish leader Abdullah Gul said his arrival was an important event, Turkey's NTV channel said. "We are not writing history, we are making it," Gul said.
Their 40-minute meeting took place at a hotel in Bursa, and was attended by the foreign ministers.
Armenian nationalist groups have criticized the accords for failure to take into account the Turkish genocide against Armenians in WWI. Turkey has demanded that Armenia drop its campaign to have the killings of thousands of Armenians internationally recognized as genocide, saying many Turks were also killed in the war.
Nagorny Karabakh, the disputed Armenian-populated region in Azerbaijan, has also been a stumbling block in efforts to rebuild ties.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in a show of support for Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking ally of Ankara, following a bloody conflict over Nagorny Karabakh between the two republics.
Armenia and Turkey agreed to a "roadmap" to normalize their relations under Swiss mediation this April.
Gul visited Armenia's capital Yerevan last year for the first leg of what has been called "soccer diplomacy."
