TURK, ARMENIAN SIDES WATCH EACH OTHER, WAIT FOR NEXT MOVE

Hurriyet Daily News
Oct 27 2009

Armenia and Turkey are waiting for each other to take the next
step toward improved relations. The Turkish foreign minister says a
positive development in Azerbaijani-Armenian relations will be good
for the Turkish Parliament to pass the protocols. Meanwhile, experts
in Armenia say Armenian lawmakers may delay voting on the protocols
until the Turkish parliament makes its judgment After taking the first
major step toward normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations and signing
historic protocols on Oct. 10, both sides now await the next move –
from the other party.

In an interview with Al Jazeera television Monday, Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the government would not impose pressure
on Parliament to accept the protocols but that a positive development
in Azerbaijani-Armenian relations would affect the parliamentary
approval process positively. The psychological and political atmosphere
had significance for such agreements to be approved, he said.

Asked whether the acceptance of the protocols by the Turkish Parliament
depended on a development in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is the
cause of the Azerbaijani-Armenia conflict, Davutoglu said [no matter
when they are approved] the protocols would have a positive effect
on stability in the southern Caucasus, especially in the resolution
of the Azerbaijan-Armenian conflict.

"A development in this field would definitely have a positive effect
on the acceptance process. However, if the situation gets worse or if
there is no longer hope that there can be a positive development, in
that case our parliamentarians will have a negative inclination. This
is why we need to work on a positive scenario now," he said.

The Turkish foreign minister said Azerbaijan is a strategic ally and
that the subject is also a domestic political issue for Turkey.

When asked whether Armenian claims of genocide could be confirmed after
the proposed commission researches the events of 1915, Davutoglu said
he, himself, is an academic and historian and historical facts should
be researched based on historical documents.

Meanwhile, Armenian lawmakers may delay voting on the protocols until
the Turkish Parliament has considered the measure, reported Bloomberg
on Tuesday. Armenia will probably wait for Turkey to act on the treaty,
said Nairi Petrosyan, a spokesman for the parliament in Yerevan.

Many Armenians are concerned the treaty could lead to a compromise
on Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia’s demand that Turkey recognize the
events of 1915 as genocide.

"The Armenian public is confused because of a lack of information,"
Richard Giragosian, director of the Armenian Center for National and
International Studies, said by telephone from Yerevan on Monday in
an interview with Bloomberg. "The vast majority supports opening the
border and normalizing relations, but the question is: At what price?

What we’re seeing is a rather mistaken trade-off," he said.

"I don’t see any real problems on passage in the Armenian parliament.

The real test will come from the Turkish side," Giragosian said.

He said Turkish lawmakers are likely to postpone voting on the
protocols until next February or March to coincide with the 95th
anniversary of the 1915 events. Giragosian said Turkey is trying to
maximize the political benefits. Turkey hopes normalizing ties with
Armenia will assuage European Union opponents of Turkish membership.

Events of 1915

In the Oct. 10 agreement, Turkey and Armenia pledged to create a joint
commission of historians to investigate the events of 1915. Armenia
says as many as 1.5 million Armenian people were systematically
killed. Turkey cites a lower figure and says the deaths were the
result of civil strife in which many Turks were also killed.

Armenia’s political opposition has criticized the government for moving
too fast to repair relations with Turkey before first resolving the
disputes. "The opposition has never said we don’t want normalized
ties," Arman Mysinian, a leader of the opposition National Congress
of Armenia, told Bloomberg. "But the genocide and Karabakh should
not have been included in the foreign policy agenda."

Samvel Farmanyan, a spokesman for Serge Sarkisian, said the agreement
does not call into question the legitimacy of Armenia’s position on
the events of 1915 or Nagorno-Karabakh and that the government would
never compromise.