SARKSYAN: NORMALIZATION NOT LINKED TO GENOCIDE DEBATES

Today’s Zaman
March 24 2010
Turkey

According to Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan, a US House committee’s
adoption of a resolution recognizing the killings of Anatolian
Armenians under Ottoman rule during World War I as genocide should
not be accorded any relevance in regard to the ongoing process of
normalization between Ankara and Yerevan.

Earlier this month the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs approved
a nonbinding resolution condemning the 1915 killings. It was followed
by the Swedish parliament’s vote recognizing the early-20th-century
killings of Anatolian Armenians as genocide.

In both cases Turkey responded angrily, withdrawing its ambassadors
to Washington and Stockholm while also suggesting that these votes
would have a damaging impact on the normalization process between
Armenia and Turkey.

President Sarksyan’s remarks on the issue came in Damascus as he
arrived in the Syrian capital on Monday for a official three-day visit.

In an interview with the Syrian Al-Watan newspaper, Sarksyan was
asked what influence the passage of the Armenian genocide resolution
by the US committee could have on the process of normalization of
Armenian-Turkish relations, Public Radio of Armenia reported on Tuesday
on its Web page. "The resolution considered at the US committee is an
internal affair for that country which we are not interfering with. We
did not make the recognition of the Armenian genocide a precondition
for the establishment of Armenian-Turkish relations, since we support
the improvement of relations with Turkey without any preconditions,"
Sarksyan was quoted as saying in response.

"I do not think the attempts to tie the process to the recognition
of the Armenian genocide by other countries are proper. One thing
is obvious to me — the longer it takes to normalize our relations,
the more countries will adopt such resolutions," Sarksyan also warned.

A senior Turkish diplomat underlined earlier this month that the
US resolution, which Ankara expects will not reach the House floor,
and the normalization process "must" definitely be dealt with as two
separate processes that are independent from each other.

"The normalization process has by no means died. Ever since the
protocols were signed between Turkey and Armenia, the normalization
process has continued along its natural course," the same diplomat,
speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Today’s Zaman at the
time, while noting that third-party interventions such as that by the
US vote have a strong potential to have a deleterious impact on this
natural process.

In Damascus, meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, voiced his
country’s willingness to "play a role in building common ground for
relations between Armenia and Turkey."

The remarks by Assad, who has warm relations with Turkey’s Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and whose country last year established
a high-level strategic cooperation council with Turkey aiming at
deepening bilateral cooperation, came at a joint press conference
following his talks with the visiting Sarksyan on Monday.

While reiterating that it is necessary to overcome all differences
between Armenia and Turkey, resorting to dialogue to continue the
process of confidence building, Assad hailed Sarksyan’s decision
to develop relations with Turkey as "courageous and based on a
far-sighted vision."