Yerevan Report, Armenia
Feb 10 2010

President Sarkisian Reaffirms Pledge to Ratify Protocols

Feb 10th, 2010 |

YEREVAN (Yerevan Report Staff), February 10`Today President Serge
Sarkisian, in a landmark speech made before the Chattem House British
Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, pledged that he
would immediately initiate the process of debate on the
Turkish-Armenian protocols in the Armenian National Assembly.

`Immediately after today’s meeting here at the Chattem House, I am
going to instruct my staff to submit the Armenia-Turkey protocols to
the Armenian National Assembly for the ratification process to be
initiated,’ he said.

This decision contradicts an earlier statement from Yerevan that the
protocols would only be considered by the National Assembly after
having been ratified by the Turkish parliament.

President Sarkisian had indicated in several public statements that
Armenia would walk away from the protocols if Turkey failed to ratify
them `within a reasonable time frame.’ Ankara was expected to ratify
the protocols by April.

Ankara has recently expressed dissatisfaction several times with
Armenia’s Constitutional Court decision regarding the protocols last
month, as voiced by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. The Court ruled that the protocols should
not interfere with Armenia’s desire to seek continued international
recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

Both Erdogan and Davutoglu have also insisted in the months after the
signing of the protocols last October that the opening of the
Turkish-Armenian border would be conditional upon a final peace
agreement on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Azerbaijan’s favor.

Yesterday President Sarkisian sent a message to President Abdullah Gul
of Turkey alluding to the necessity for moving forward with the
normalization of relations between the two countries.

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