urkey wanted to create an atmosphere of dialogue with Armenia, Babacan told a press conference in New York.   

"Turkish president, prime minister and foreign minister sent letters to their Armenian counterparts after recent elections in Armenia, and these letters aimed to open a new door of dialogue with the new (Armenian) administration," he was quoted as saying by the Anatolian Agency.

As a signal of efforts to revive relations between the two countries, Turkish and Armenian officials held a series of secret meetings in the capital of Switzerland on July 8. This meeting Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan's proposal for "a fresh start" with the goal of normalizing relations with Turkey and opening the border.

Sargsyan also invited Turkish President Abdullah Gul to watch a football match between the two country's national teams on Sept 6 to mark "a new symbolic start in the two countries' relations". Turkey has been evaluating this invitation.

Although Turkey is among the first countries that recognized Armenia when it declared its independency, there is no diplomatic relations between two countries as Armenia presses the international community to admit the so-called "genocide" claims instead of accepting Turkey's call to investigate the allegations, and its invasion of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory despite U.N. Security Council resolutions on the issue.

The foreign minister said that Turkey's aim was to have zero problems with its neighbors. "Naturally, we are also expecting some concrete steps from the other party," he said.

Babacan said he believed that Turkey's problems could be solved through dialogue, and underlined importance of setting up a joint committee of historians to deal with the incidents of 1915.

In 2005, Turkey officially proposed to the Armenian government the establishment of a joint historical commission composed of historians and other experts from both sides to study together the events of 1915, and to open the archives of Turkey and Armenia, as well as the archives of all relevant third-party countries and share their findings publicly.

Sargsyan gave the green light recently to Turkey's proposal to establish a joint commission to investigate the so-called "genocide" claims, saying this step should be preceded by the normalization of relations. Yerevan had long been hesitant to agree to the proposal.

Armenia, with the backing of the Diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in 1915. Turkey rejects the claims, saying that 300,000 Armenians along with at least as many Turks died in civil strife that emerged when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia.

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