ARMENIAN FM: WHY DID WE SIGN TWO PROTOCOLS IF WE ARE NOT GOING TO RATIFY AND IMPLEMENT THEM?

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
02.11.2009 10:54 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia’s foreign minister has rejected Turkish
calls for concessions in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange
for the historic rapprochement between Yerevan and Ankara.

Speaking to Reuters late on Friday, Edward Nalbandian said negotiations
between Turkey and Armenia were over and both sides were obliged to
move quickly to establish diplomatic relations and open their border
under accords signed this month.

"Why did we sign two protocols if we are not going to ratify and
implement them?" Nalbandian, 53, said in an interview in the Armenian
capital, Yerevan.

"I think the whole international community is waiting for quick
ratification and implementation and respect for the agreements which
are in the protocols," he said.

"If one of the sides will delay and create some obstacles in the
way of ratification and implementation, I think it could bear all
the responsibility for the negative consequences." Nalbandian said
the Armenian-Turkish thaw and the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations were
"two separate processes."

"This is not only the Armenian approach but the approach of the
international community," he said, adding that negotiations between
Turkey and Armenia were over. "Negotiations were finalised at the
beginning of February."

Mediators from the United States, Russia and France say they are making
progress towards a peace deal on Nagorno-Karabakh in talks between
Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev.

But Nalbandian played down talk of an imminent breakthrough. There
is a "positive dynamic", he said. "But to say that tomorrow or in
one month’s time or in a very short period of time we will come to
the agreement, I don’t think this is very serious."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress