ARMENIAN MPS ADOPT ‘EXIT STRATEGY’ ON TURKEY ACCORDS

Agence France Presse
Feb 25 2010

Armenia’s parliament on Thursday adopted legal amendments described as
an "exit strategy" for withdrawing from a landmark deal to establish
ties with Turkey after decades of hostility.

The amendments, passed by a vote of 70-4, will allow President Serzh
Sarkisian to suspend ratification and withdraw from previously signed
international agreements.

The move comes amid growing frustration in Armenia over the Turkish
parliament’s failure to ratify two protocols signed in October to
establish diplomatic ties and open the Armenian-Turkish border.

"The need for these amendments obviously stems from the current
situation with the process of ratification of the Armenia-Turkey
protocols," the chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs committee,
Armen Rustamian, said.

"Existing tools are not sufficient to protect our interests and these
changes create such a legal basis…. Armenia is today facing such
problems that it may withdraw from the process. We are now developing
an exit strategy," he told parliament.

The signing of the deals was hailed internationally as a key step in
overcoming decades of enmity stemming from World War I-era massacres
of Armenians under Ottoman Turks.

But ratification by both countries’ parliaments has stalled as the
two sides have traded accusations of trying to modify the deal.

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
normalising Turkish-Armenian ties depends on progress in resolving
the conflict between Armenia and Turkish ally Azerbaijan over the
disputed Nagorny Karabakh region.

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

The conflict remains unresolved despite years of international
mediation.