!à‡`="justify">Foreign Minister Babacan writes a letter to his newly elected Armenian counterpart, saying that Turkey is open to dialogue for normalization of troubled ties. Yerevan also says it is for dialogue, but calls for the re-opening of closed borders first.

é ginning of a new era in bilateral ties between the two neighbors that currently have no diplomatic relations.

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan told reporters yesterday that he had dispatched a letter to his Armenian counterpart, congratulating him on his new post and saying that Turkey is open to dialogue in order to normalize Turkish-Armenian relations.

"There is no doubt that there are problems in the two countries' relations but a solution passes through dialogue. Our doors are open to dialogue," Babacan said when he was asked about Turkish-Armenian relations during a news conference with visiting Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik.

"We received the letter of Babacan and we considered it to be very positive," an Armenian diplomat, who wished to remain unnamed, told the Turkish Daily News.

"But this [call for dialogue] should not only be in words, but also in deeds. We expect action," he said and reiterated the well-known Armenian position that the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and re-opening of the closed borders without any preconditions play a major role in normalizing the ties.

"This is one of the key elements. It is nonsense for a European Union candidate country to keep its borders closed with its neighbor," added the same diplomat.

However, it appears a new momentum has been gained in bilateral relations in the wake of the elections in Armenia as Babacan said, without elaborating, preparations were underway to normalize troubled relations through different channels, while the new Armenian foreign minister said in an interview that Yerevan was "for dialogue with Turkey."

In an interview with Armenia's Mediamax news agency, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said, "With regard to our relations with Turkey, we have, on various occasions, expressed our readiness to normalize them without any precondition."

He said the alleged genocide of the Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire was a dark page of their common history with Turkey and added, "We have to turn this page and together we must build a secure future."

"I want to once more reiterate the readiness of Armenia to develop relations with Turkey without preconditions and our commitment to make necessary steps to that end," he noted.

The Armenia diaspora's attempts for international recognition of genocide claims as well as Armenian troops' invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azeri territory, have prevented the two nations from having diplomatic relations. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993, a move that hurt the economy of landlocked Armenia.