On March 9-10 in the Turkish town of Urgup the first round table meeting under the trilateral project “Armenia-Azerbaijan-Turkey: Journalist Initiative-2002” was held. The project is implemented by Yerevan Press Club, “Yeni Nesil” Journalists Union of Azerbaijan and the Association of Diplomacy Correspondents of Turkey with the support of OSI Network Media Program. The organization of the meeting was also assisted to by the Turkish Democracy Foundation. The round table brought together representatives of media and journalistic organizations of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey as well as Turkish politicians, diplomats and economists.
The experts from the three countries made presentations on the coverage of the situation after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, in the USA, in the media of their respective countries in the context of regional problems; the prospects of economic and political cooperation in the region; the relations of Europe and Turkey. The representatives of the Armenian newspapers of Turkey (“Jamanak”, “Marmara”, “Agos”) who took part in the round table described the activities of their editions.
On March 11 in Ankara the round table participants met with the ninth President of Turkey Suleyman Demirel. At the meeting the representatives of Yerevan Press Club, “Yeni Nesil” Journalists Union of Azerbaijan, the Association of Diplomacy Correspondents of Turkey and the Turkish Democracy Foundation signed a statement. The statement stresses, in particular, the necessity for a problem resolution in the region through negotiations and a dialogue, assist the establishment of climate of trust between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Welcoming all constructive contributions aimed at establishing understanding in the region, the parties reaffirmed the importance of partnership for the development of the dialogue between the three countries, and, as a consequence, the necessity for further information exchange on a regular basis.
On March 14 a press conference was held at the Journalists Union of Armenia, where the Armenian participants of the round table shared their impressions of the trip. During the meeting with journalists the project “Armenia-Azerbaijan-Turkey: Journalist Initiative-2002” was also introduced. The project envisages five-month monitoring of the media of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, a series of journalistic meetings.
In mid-February, under this project, a web-site “Media Dialogue” was launched featuring the most interesting publications from the press of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey on the subjects of common interest with the recent updates disseminated on weekly basis by e-mail.
