Turkish opposition leader criticizes Armenia visit

"What has Armenia done to change its policy of hostility towards Turkey over the issue of Armenian lies; what has it done to withdraw from Azerbaijani territory? Nothing," Deniz Baykal, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said in an interview with Turkish news channel, NTV.

"Perhaps he could go and pray at the site of the ‘Armenian genocide’ and lay a wreath while he is there," Baykal added.

Gul will attend a football World Cup 2010 qualifier in Yerevan on Saturday afternoon following an invitation from his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan.

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 Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia.

The Turkish press published Friday comments made by Gul in 1993 when he was a member of an Islamist political party.

Gul criticized the Turkish government of the time for inviting the Armenian head of state to attend the funeral of the then Turkish president, Turgut Ozal.

"How can you have the audacity to shake the hand of an Armenian president, whose country has invaded Azerbaijani territory (...) Like Israel, Armenia stands alone in our region," he said in parliament, according to Turkey's Vatan daily.�

Turkey is among the first countries that recognized Armenia when it declared its independency. However 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.