TURKISH PRESIDENT CALLS FOR NORMALIZATION OF TIES WITH ARMENIA

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Feb 11 2010

(RTTNews) – Turkish President Abdullah Gul insisted Thursday that
both Turkey ad Armenia must make serious efforts to normalize their
relations by honoring an historic deal made to end the long-time
hostilities between the two sides.

"We have to be aware that concluding this historic process will require
honoring our commitments in their entirety as well as displaying
adequate political courage and vision," Gul was quoted by local news
agencies as saying in a letter addressed to his Armenian counterpart
Serzh Sarksyan.

"You should have no doubt that our determination to move these
objectives forward is intact, provided that this resolve and commitment
remains reciprocal," Gul added in his response to an earlier message
sent to him by Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan.

In a message sent to Gul earlier in the week, Sarkisian had said that
the "time has come to manifest determination to take the next major
step and leave to future generations a stable and secure region."

Sarkisian was apparently referring to the ratification by the Turkish
parliament of two agreements that commits Turkey and Armenia to
establish diplomatic relations and open their mutual border to
each other.

Sarksyan also insisted in his message that Armenia’s parliament would
approve the agreements only after the Turkish parliament ratifies
them. He also warned that Armenia could break off its relation
normalization efforts if Turkey delayed the ratification of the
protocols.

Both Turkey and Armenia had announced last April a deal that would
normalize relations between the two sides. Though the deal has strong
backing of the international community, it is currently on the brink
of collapse as both Turkey and Armenia are yet to ratify the agreement.

Turkey’s parliament initially delayed ratifying the protocols, as it
linked the establishment of diplomatic relations to negotiations on the
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Armenian troops are currently occupying the
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh after they helped Armenian separatists to
seize control of the enclave from Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey,
in the early 1990s.

The war for the enclave resulted in the death of nearly 30,000 people
and forced two million others to flee their homes. Though the two
countries signed a ceasefire agreement in May 1994, the dispute
remains unresolved despite continued international efforts.

Linking the agreement to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue has triggered an
outrage among Turkey’s sizable Azeri minority. It also evoked a strong
response from Azerbaijan, with President Ilham Aliyev threatening to
boycott the Nabucco pipeline project designed to carry natural gas
from Central Asia to markets in Europe through Turkey.

Following Azerbaijan’s threat to back out of the Nabucco pipeline
project over Turkey’s deal with Armenia, Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan visited Azerbaijan in an effort to ease tensions.

During that visit, Erdogan stressed his country would not seek to
normalize relations with Armenia on Azerbaijan’s expense. He also
added that Turkey will not re-open its borders with Armenia until
Armenian military forces withdraw from Azerbaijani territory.

Turkey then demanded the resolving of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave
conflict through international meditations and the withdrawal of
Armenian forces from the enclave as a condition for ratifying the
agreements.

Another hurdle to Turkey’s ratification of the agreements sprung up
recently after Armenia’s Constitutional Court ruled on 12th January
the deal with Turkey should not breach the country’s Independence
Declaration, which states that the Republic of Armenia "stands in
support of the task of achieving international recognition of the
Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia."

But Turkey objected to the Armenian Constitutional Court ruling,
insisting that the ruling was based on "preconditions and restrictive
findings" that undermine the "fundamental objectives" of the
protocols. Prime Minister Erdogan described the court ruling as
"unacceptable" and said it could undermine the reconciliation efforts
between the two countries.

Turkey denies the occurrence of any genocide of Armenians and insists
that those killed were victims of during the chaotic collapse of the
Ottoman empire before the birth of modern Turkey in 1923.

Turkey and Armenia have not had any diplomatic or economic relations
after Armenia declared its independence in 1991. In addition, Turkey
also closed its borders with Armenia in 1993 as a token of support
for Azerbaijan, which had a territorial conflict with Armenia.