ARMENIAN PRESIDENT URGES TURKISH PARLIAMENT TO PASS ACCORD

Hurriyet
Feb 11 2010
Turkey

Armenian President Serge Sarkisian called on Turkish lawmakers to take
the first step toward implementing a stalled accord on normalizing
ties between the two countries.

"The (Armenian) parliament will vote on the protocols if the Turkish
parliament goes ahead first," the Armenian leader told the Chatham
House think tank in London on Wednesday.

"As a leader of the political majority (in Armenia), I guarantee
a positive vote in parliament if the Turkish side votes without
preconditions and within the timeframe," he said, adding that if
Armenia goes first "we risk being in a situation where the (Armenian)
parliament will approve it and Turkey fails to do so."

Ankara has accused Yerevan of trying to set new conditions after
Armenia’s constitutional court said the protocols could not contradict
Yerevan’s official position that the Armenian mass killings constituted
"genocide" – a label Turkey fiercely rejects.

Armenia, for its part, is furious over Ankara’s insistence that
normalizing Turkish-Armenian ties depends on progress in the disputed
Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with
Azerbaijan after ethnic Armenian forces wrested Karabakh from Baku’s
control in a war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives.