INTERNAL PROBLEMS PUT OFF RATIFICATION OF PROTOCOLS IN TURKEY

PanARMENIAN.Net
15.01.2010 14:52 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Kurdish and Cyprus issues as well as probable
early elections in Turkey have put off ratification of the protocols,
according to expert Ruben Melkonyan.

"These problems can enable Turkey to drag out the ratification
process," he told a news conference in Yerevan on Friday. "Anyway,
Armenian leadership will never agree to link Karabakh settlement to
normalization of relations with Turkey."

"It’s hard to make forecasts but I don’t think Turkey may ratify
protocols if Armenia doesn’t make concessions on Karabakh," Melkonyan
said.

TheProtocols aimed at normalization of bilateral ties and opening of
the border between Armenia and Turkey were signed in Zurich by Armenian
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet
Davutoglu on October 10, 2009, after a series of diplomatic talks
held through Swiss mediation.

On January 12, 2010, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of
Armenia found the protocols conformable to the country’s Organic Law.

The Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR) is a de facto independent republic
located in the South Caucasus, bordering by Azerbaijan to the north
and east, Iran to the south, and Armenia to the west.

After the Soviet Union established control over the area, in 1923
it formed the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the
Azerbaijan SSR. In the final years of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan
launched an ethnic cleansing which resulted in the Karabakh War that
was fought from 1991 to 1994.

Since the ceasefire in 1994, most of Nagorno Karabakh and several
regions of Azerbaijan around it (the security zone) remain under the
control of Nagorno Karabakh defense army.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have since been holding peace talks mediated
by the OSCE Minsk Group.