Obama urges Turkey, Armenia to normalize ties soon

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama urged the foreign ministers of Turkey and Armenia during a meeting on Monday to complete talks aimed at restoring ties between the two neighbors, a U.S. official said.

Ankara and Yerevan are engaged in high-level negotiations to end nearly a century of hostility, including the reopening of the border -- a move which could help shore up stability in the volatile Caucasus.

"On the margins of tonight's Alliance of Civilizations dinner, the president met the foreign ministers of Turkey, Armenia and Switzerland to commend their efforts toward Turkish-Armenian normalization and to urge them to complete an agreement with dispatch," a senior U.S. official told reporters in Istanbul.

The official was referring to a U.N.-backed conference in Istanbul organized to discuss ways of building bridges between the Muslim world and the West, which Obama attended on Monday as part of his visit to Turkey.

Obama told reporters earlier in Ankara that he stood by his views on mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915, which he has termed genocide, but said he expected a breakthrough in talks between Turkey and Armenia.

A breakthrough between Turkey and Armenia could help shore up stability in the volatile Caucasus, criss-crossed by oil and gas pipelines which make it of strategic importance to Russia, Europe and the United States.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan, which was fighting Armenian-backed separatists over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Obama has praised Turkey for its role in helping to work toward a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which he said "has continued for far too long."

Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks during World War One but strongly denies that up to 1.5 million died as a result of genocide. (Reporting by Matt Spetalnick; writing by Ibon Villelabeitia; Editing by Jon Boyle)