ARMENIA WON’T RATIFY RELATIONS DEAL BEFORE TURKEY, SAYS SPEAKER

Hurriyet
Dec 24 2009
Turkey

The head of Armenia’s parliament said Thursday that it would not ratify
a landmark deal on ties with Turkey before the Turkish parliament does,
accusing Ankara of setting new conditions on the agreement.

"The National Assembly of Armenia will start discussions on the
ratification of the protocols only after their ratification by the
Turkish parliament," Speaker Hovik Abrahamian told journalists.

He accused Turkish officials of trying to link the ratification to
Armenia’s conflict with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh
region and the question of whether World War I-era killings of
Armenians under Ottoman Empire constituted "genocide."

"These are not fair steps, as initially this was a question of
normalizing relations without preconditions," Abrahamian said.

Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols in October on establishing
diplomatic ties and re-opening their shared border in a deal hailed
as a historic step towards ending decades of hostility stemming from
the World War I-era killings.

But Armenia in recent weeks has expressed growing frustration over
Turkey’s failure to ratify the protocols, with President Serge
Sarkisian earlier this month threatening to walk away from the deal
if Ankara "drags out" the process.

Turkish officials have repeatedly said the agreements will not be
ratified without progress in Armenia’s dispute with Azerbaijan over
Nagorno-Karabakh.

Backed by Yerevan, ethnic Armenian separatists seized control of
Karabakh and seven surrounding districts from Azerbaijan during a
war in the early 1990s that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives.

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