US, SWITZERLAND DENY TURKEY GUARANTEES OVER HISTORICAL COMMISSION

Asbarez
Feb 8th, 2010

Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian and Turkish counterpart
Ahmet Davutoglu sign protocols for establishing normal relations
between their two countries in Zurich on October 10, 2009.

ANKARA (Combined Sources)-The US and Switzerland have refrained
from giving assurances to Turkey that limitations will not be placed
on the "mission and methodology" of a historic commission to probe
the veracity of the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish Hurriyet Daily
reported Monday.

The creation of the so-called fact-finding body is outlined in
fence-mending protocols signed between Ankara and Yerevan in October
of last year.

Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu traveled to Bern
last Friday to seek Swiss support on Ankara’s position that a ruling
by the Armenian Constitutional Court on the protocols threatens to
derail normalization efforts with Armenia. He will seek the same
assurance from U.S. officials during a visit to Washington this month.

Armenia’s Constitutional Court on January 12 upheld the legality of
the protocols, but stipulated that the protocols could have no bearing
on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict or contradict Yerevan’s efforts to
garner international recognition and condemnation for the Armenian
Genocide as outlined by Armenia’s Declaration of Independence.

Despite assurances from Armenia that the Constitutional Court ruling
would not affect the protocols process, Turkey’s foreign ministry
began drafting a document late last month that delineates the Turkish
position on what it calls the "incompatibilities" of Armenia’s
Constitutional Court ruling and requires written legal guarantees
from Yerevan that it will not include the court’s reservations in
the documents.

Ankara was hoping to get the US and Switzerland to join this process.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu relayed Turkey’s concerns
firsthand to European, American and Armenian officials during telephone
conversations and on the sidelines of international conferences and
reportedly discussed the matter with US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton during a meeting in London in late January.

Ankara also plans to apply to the OSCE Minsk Group and European Union.

But the general mood in Washington and other Western capitals is that
Turkey’s reaction to the court ruling as "exaggerated" and it will be
responsible for the possible failure of normalization efforts. Both
Washington and Bern have said the court’s decision presents no legal
obstacle to the implementation of the protocols.