TURKEY SENDS ARMENIA DEALS TO PARLIAMENT AMID OPPOSITION ANGER
by Hande Culpan

Agence France Presse
October 21, 2009 Wednesday 3:12 PM GMT
ANKARA

Turkey’s foreign minister on Wednesday defended landmark protocols
with Armenia aimed at ending decades of hostility over World War I
era massacres after they were submitted to parliament for ratification.

Turkey and Armenia, at loggerheads over the killings of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks, signed the two deals on establishing diplomatic ties
and opening their border on October 10, and need their respective
parliaments’ approval before the deals can take effect.

However, Ankara was not expected to seek a vote on the protocols soon
as it faces opposition from both nationalists at home and close ally
Azerbaijan for reconciling with Armenia before Baku’s own dispute
with Yerevan was resolved.

In a bid to appease critics, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that
Ankara would never ignore Azeri interests or sacrifice its ties with
Baku as it moved ahead with its aim of developing "good neighbourly
relations" with Yerevan.

Turkey would always stand by Azerbaijan in the dispute over
Nagorny-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority enclave which seceded from
Baku after a war in the early 1990s, he told parliament.

"Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity is as sacred as our own and we will
do our utmost for a settlement to the conflict," the minister said.

An angry Azerbaijan has slammed the Turkish-Armenia deals, wary
that the reconciliation would diminish Turkey’s support over
Nagorny-Karabakh.

In 1993, Turkey closed its border with Armenia in a show of solidarity
with Azerbaijan, with whom it has strong ethnic, trade and energy
links, against Yerevan’s support for Armenian separatists in the
enclave.

Opposition parties cast doubt on Davutoglu’s vision and warned that
it would be a strategic mistake to alienate Baku.

"It is important to establish good ties with Armenia, but it would not
be a rational policy to offend and lose Azerbaijan to this end," Sukru
Elekdag, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, said.

In remarks deeply worrying for Ankara, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev
said last week that Turkish terms for buying Azerbaijani gas were
unacceptable and that Baku is considering other routes for shipping
its gas to Europe.

Turkey has already said that the ratification of the Armenia accords
will depend on progress in talks over Nagorny Karabakh although
Armenia rejects any link between the two issues.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul held a telephone conversation with
Aliyev Wednesday in which the two leaders "overcame misunderstandings
triggered by emotional responses to a difficult process", a spokesman
from his office said.

Aliyev’s office on the other hand said that Gul "noted that unless
Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is settled, the
normalisation of Turkish-Armenian relations is not possible."

Davutolgu will visit Baku Thursday to attend a regional gathering
and will meet Aliyev and Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov on the
sidelines, the Turkish foreign ministry said.

Under the Turkish parliament’s rules, the protocols will have to
be approved by the foreign affairs commission before they can be
discussed in the general assembly, where the ruling Justice and
Development Party has a comfortable majority.

Armenia is yet to submit the accords to its own parliament but the
ruling coalition has already backed them, making their approval
almost a guarantee, despite vocal opposition at home and from the
influential diaspora.

Until the recent reconciliation, Turkey had long refused to establish
ties with Armenia over Yerevan’s international campaign to have the
massacres of Armenians recognised as genocide.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically
killed between 1915 and 1917. Turkey categorically rejects the genocide
label and says the number of Armenians killed in what was civil strife
is inflated.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress