TURKEY’S ‘UNOFFICIAL’ PREREQUISITE IS ACTUALLY OFFICIAL: ZAMAN

news.am
Feb 18 2010
Armenia

"We thought that the Armenian initiative was linked to Nagorno-Karabakh
issue and that the Turkish side had shelved the protocols until
a &’worthwhile’ development, we found ourselves in another mess
with Armenia sending the protocols to its constitutional court for
approval," Today’s Zaman analyst Aline Ozinian reports.

"The protocols cannot contradict the Armenian Constitution and
Paragraph 11 of the Declaration of Independence of Armenia. Paragraph
11 provides for the Republic of Armenia to lend support to the efforts
for the international recognition of the 1915 incidents in the Ottoman
Empire as genocide," the source reads.

"Turkey obviously does not like this article, but was it added
&’secretly’ to the Declaration of Independence after Oct. 10, or were
Turkish Foreign Ministry and government officials not aware of this
document when they went to Zurich? Or did they assume that after the
signing of the protocols, the &’poor’ Armenians would forget about
genocide or tear up the declaration since it is not liked by their
neighbors? Those who can read diplomacy correctly know well that
the process was not halted by the Armenian constitutional court’s
decision on the protocol’s conformity with the constitution but by
the Turkish government, which expects a &’concrete’ development with
respect to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue," the daily informs.

"Aside from the strangeness of the negative perception of the
constitutional conformity decision, it is unfortunate for Turkey
to try to gain time by ensuring its &’unofficial’ prerequisite —
which is actually official, but was not reflected in the protocols,"
the analyst says.

"If we ask why parliamentary approval was needed to open the common
border between Turkey and Armenia or to establish diplomatic relations,
we understand that it was needed just for this reason: to introduce
delays to the process or find an excuse for our failure — such as
saying that we did everything but parliament had the final say,"
the article concludes.