FM BRIEFS PARLIAMENT SPEAKER ON ARMENIA PROCESS

Hurriyet Daily News
Sept 11 2009
Turkey

Friday, September 11, 2009 ANKARA – Hurriyet Daily News

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with Parliament Speaker Mehmet Ali
Sahin on Friday to inform him about the government’s foreign policy,
including the normalization process between Turkey and Armenia.

Speaking to reporters following an almost hour-long meeting, Davutoglu
said he and Sahin discussed the Caucasus, the normalization process
with Armenia, the developments on Nagorno-Karabakh and other foreign
policy developments.

"No matter what step we take in foreign policy or what initiative we
launch, the eventual source of legitimacy for all these policies is
our high Parliament," said the foreign minister.

Davutoglu has also asked to meet with the political parties before
the protocols with Armenia reach Parliament for ratification.

"Before Parliament begins the new legislative year, we would like to
inform [members of Parliament]. I hope this will take place shortly,"
he said. Davutoglu is expected to meet with Republican People’s Party,
or CHP, leader Deniz Baykal, on Tuesday. The Nationalist Movement
Party, or MHP, however, refused to meet with Davutoglu.

Asked if his request for an appointment was given a positive response,
the minister said: "If you like, let’s not evaluate them as positive
or negative. In fact, we applied yesterday [Thursday]," Davutoglu
said. "The valuable leaders of our political parties have their own
schedules. That will all be clarified in a couple of days."

In response to another question about whether he requested that
Å~^ahin speak to Parliament, Davutoglu said: "No, it is totally
up to our Parliament. We discussed other areas of foreign policy,
but I had the chance to tell Mr. Speaker in detail about the work we
have done so far concerning the developments in the Caucasus and the
normalization process with Armenia, which are a source of curiosity."

Asked if the six-week protocol process had started with Armenia,
he said the process began with the joint statement released by the
Turkish and Armenian foreign ministries on Aug. 31.

"By meeting with Mr. Parliament Speaker, I have started this
[process]. I hope it will be discussed in public," Davutoglu said. "As
the protocol texts are open to the public, we are providing all our
political parties, institutions and nongovernmental organizations with
information, but this is a limited period, as you can imagine. We’ll
do our best."

The minister said he held a comprehensive meeting with the Azerbaijani
foreign minister regarding the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict. "This is,
of course, a development that upsets us. We’re trying to maintain
permanent peace in the region," he said. "Therefore, that is an
upsetting development. We hope it will not recur but along the border
such conflicts have occurred before, so it is not specific to today."