EU URGES TURKEY, ARMENIA TO COMPLETE NORMALISATION OF RELATIONS
Sofia Echo
April 7 2010
Bulgaria
The European Union has called on Armenia and Turkey to remain committed
to the process of normalising bilateral relations – and to ratify and
implement the bilateral protocols signed in 2009 "without preconditions
and in a reasonable timeframe".
This was said by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on April 6
2010, soon after EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule, who called on
the two countries to make progress with their troubled normalisation
efforts without any preconditions, while emphasising the importance
attached to this normalisation process by Brussels in relation to
Turkey’s accession to the EU.
"Good relations with neighbors are very important in the framework of
any country’s entry to the European Union," EU Enlargement Commissioner
Stefan Fule was quoted as saying by the Armenian media on April 6
during a visit to Yerevan, Today’s Zaman said.
In October 2009, representatives of Turkey and Armenia agreed on a deal
to normalise relations, after years of serious bilateral disputes,
but the deal has made no progress in the respective parliaments of
the two countries. Mutual accusations have been traded of attempts
to revise the deal and add new conditions to what was agreed last year.
"The EU encourages Armenia and Turkey to remain committed to the
process of normalisation and calls on both countries to ratify and
implement the bilateral protocols without preconditions and in a
reasonable timeframe," Ashton said.
"In this context, the EU welcomes the decision of the Armenian
president to submit both protocols to the parliament as well as the
recent declaration by the president of Turkey to remain committed to
the normalisation of relations with Armenia," she said.
The EU believed that the full normalisation of bilateral relations
between Armenia and Turkey would be an important contribution to
security, stability and co-operation in the Southern Caucasus,
Ashton said.
The EU would continue to provide political and technical support to
this process and was standing ready to help implementing the steps
agreed between the two countries, she said.