After Accord Signing, Turkey Presses Armenia on Nagorno-Karabakh
By VOA News
11 October 2009
Armenian Foreign Minister Edouard Nalbandian, left, and Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during the signing ceremony of a peace accord
in Zurich, Switzerland
Turkey’s prime minister says Armenia needs to withdraw its troops from
a breakway enclave in Azerbaijan before Turkey will open its border
with Armenia.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan linked the issues Sunday, one day
after Turkey and Armenia signed an agreement to normalize relations
after a century of hostility.
In Ankara, Mr. Erdogan said an Armenian troop pullout from
Nagorno-Karabakh would ease the way for Turkey’s parliament to ratify
the deal on normalizing relations. Before the agreement can take
effect, it must be ratified by the parliaments of both Turkey and
Armenia.
Turkey shut its border with Armenia in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan,
which was fighting to keep control of the Armenian-majority enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Broader differences between Turkey and Armenia stem from the mass
killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces during and after World
War One.
The chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, Sunday welcomed the
Turkey-Armenia accord signed Saturday. He commended the effort and
political will that leaders of the two countries have invested to
overcome differences.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent several hours Saturday
working to resolve a last-minute dispute over statements to be made at
the signing ceremony in the Swiss city of Zurich. In the end, neither
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian nor his Turkish
counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, spoke after signing the protocols to
establish diplomatic ties and to reopen the border.
There is strong opposition to the deal in both countries.
Armenians want the massacres between 1915 and 1923 recognized as
genocide, and many countries have done so. Turkey strongly rejects the
genocide claim. It says the Armenian death toll is inflated and that
many Turks also were killed during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
The agreement calls for a joint commission of independent historians to
examine the genocide question. Some experts say the commission would
be a concession to Turkey as it would revisit an issue Armenia says has
already been confirmed.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.