ARMENIA-TURKEY: WHETHER SIGNED AGREEMENT WILL BE RATIFIED?

PanARMENIAN.Net
12.10.2009 20:46 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On Saturday, October 10, Armenian and Turkish
Foreign Ministers signed "landmark" accord to normalize relations
and re-establish diplomatic ties. Deal was concluded through the
intermediary of U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton. British media
accepted such news with extremely cautious optimism.

The agreement, the culmination of more than a year of intensive
diplomacy, will commit both countries to reopen their land border and
restore diplomatic ties, Robert Tait of Guardian reports. But in an
indication of the many pitfalls that lie ahead of its implementation,
the ceremony was marred by a three-hour delay due to last-minute
disagreements on the wording of statements, forcing the American
secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to engage in intense discussions
to salvage a deal, he further notes.

According to a Financial Times correspondent, "Armenians’ anger at
Turkey’s denial that the 1915 killings were genocide, mean each
government faces big obstacles to ratifying and implementing the
agreement – even though each should technically be able to win a
parliamentary vote".

Armenians who want to break out of their landlocked and poor
economy are looking for normal relations with Turkey while Turkey,
a member of NATO, seeks to become an oil-and-gas corridor connecting
energy-rich Russia and the Caspian with Europe and the Middle East,
The Christian Science Monitor says in an editorial article. Article
expresses uncertainty about Protocol ratification given that disputes
over Armenian Genocide are still in frozen state. CSM forecasts that
"nationalist forces in Turkey and Armenia will try to derail the
agreement, and prevent ratification". However, if documents are
ratified, "that might point the way to resolving other so-called
‘intractable’ disputes in the Caucasus, and perhaps even the Turk-Greek
problem over a divided Cyprus," says the CSM reporter. In that case,
author further notes hip on the parts of Gul and Sargsyan to sail
past these political shoals – and perhaps all the way to Oslo to
collect the next Nobel."