PROTOCOLS SUBMITTED TO ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT

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Feb 12th, 2010

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)-President Serzh Sarkisian formally sent Armenia’s
normalization agreements with Turkey to parliament for ratification
on Friday after his government approved legal amendments making it
easier for Yerevan to walk away from the deal.

The government said in a statement on Thursday that the proposed
amendments to an Armenian law on international treaties allow Yerevan
"not to become a party" to a particular agreement before its entry
into force.

"We are now establishing that before the entry into force of an
international treaty Armenia may stop participating in it," Deputy
Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharian was reported to say during
a cabinet meeting. He said the president of the republic would be
able to "terminate or suspend the process of signing" such a treaty.

Sarkisian announced his intention to enact such amendments in December
in response to Turkish leaders’ continuing statements making the
ratification of the Turkish-Armenian "protocols" conditional on
a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh favoring Azerbaijan. He made
clear that Yerevan will annul the deal if Ankara fails to implement
it within a "reasonable" time frame.

Sarkisian reaffirmed the threat during a visit to London this week.

"If, as many suspect, it is proven that Turkey’s goal is to protract,
rather than to normalize relations, we will have to discontinue the
process," he warned.

Sarkisian stressed at the same time that Armenia’s National Assembly,
dominated by his loyalists, will promptly ratify the protocols in
the event of their endorsement by the Turkish parliament.

His press secretary, Samvel Farmanian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service
on Friday that the president has asked the assembly to start the
ratification process. Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian has been
tasked with "presenting" them to Armenian lawmakers, Farmanian said.

Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan described the dispatch of the protocols
to the parliament as further proof of Yerevan’s "sincere desire to
establish good relations with neighboring states." He said it showed
that "we are prepared for the ratification of those protocols."

"It is a signal to both our domestic public and the international
community," the premier declared at a panel discussion on
Turkish-Armenian relations held in Yerevan on Friday.

"But they will not be debated until Turkey’s parliament ratifies the
protocols," Galust Sahakian, the parliamentary leader of the governing
Republican Party of Armenia, clarified in an interview with RFE/RL’s
Armenian service.

Sahakian also confirmed that the amendments drafted by the government
allow Armenia to withdraw its signature from the protocols. "After all,
reasonable timeframes must have an end-point, and if the Turkish side
again tries to drag out the process … we will simply be obliged to
withdraw our signature," he said.

"In my view, that reasonable time frame is already expiring," added
Sahakian. "We are just waiting for the glass to be filled to the brim."

Opposition lawmakers critical of the Turkish-Armenian agreements were
less than satisfied with the draft amendments. Armen Rustamian ,the
chairman of the parliament committee on foreign relations and the
leader of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s Supreme Council in
Armenia, dismissed them as "cosmetic."

"These changes are mainly a political trick with which the authorities
are trying to show Turkey that they have such an option and thereby
to prod Turkey to ensure a quick protocol ratification," said
Artsvik Minasian, another ARF lawmaker. He reaffirmed the party’s
strong opposition to an unconditional Armenian ratification of the
protocols, saying that would contradict a ruling handed by the Armenian
Constitutional Court last month.

The Turkish government likewise claims that the court ruling is
at odds with key protocol clauses. It is particularly unhappy with
the court’s conclusion that the protocols cannot stop Armenia from
advocating international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

The Sarkisian administration has insisted, however, that the court’s
interpretation does not run counter to the letter and the spirit of
the deal. U.S. officials have made similar statements.