TURKISH ENVOY SEEKS TO REVIVE PEACE EFFORTS IN ARMENIA

Agence France Presse
April 7, 2010 Wednesday 3:47 PM GMT
YEREVAN

A senior Turkish diplomat met with top officials in Armenia Wednesday
to discuss stalled reconciliation efforts between the two estranged
neighbours, Armenian and Turkish officials said.

Feridun Sinirlioglu, undersecretary of the Turkish foreign ministry,
asked Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian to meet with Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of a nuclear security
summit in Washington next week, the Armenian presidency said.

An Armenian official who requested anonymity told AFP that Yerevan
was considering the request.

"The Turkish prime minister has asked through his envoy for a bilateral
meeting with president Sarkisian during the visit to Washington,"
Sarkisian’s office said in a statement.

"Sarkisian said (during the meeting) that Armenia expects Turkey to
take practical steps to guarantee decisive progress in the process
of normalising relations, without preconditions," the statement said.

Disagreements between the two nations have been holding up a historic
deal signed in October to establish diplomatic ties and open their
border after decades of hostility.

Speaking to reporters in Paris where he is on a one-day visit, Erdogan
said he had sent a letter to Sarkisian through his envoy underlining
his government’s commitment to see the deal to fruition.

"We will always show our loyalty to the signatures that we put down
(under the deal). It is out of the question for us to take a step
back unless there is an extraordinary situation," he said in remarks
broadcast on Turkish television.

"I hope (the reconciliation process) will end positively."

The Turkish leader also said that he would make a decision on whether
to meet Sarkisian in Washington once his envoy came back with a
response to his letter.

Earlier a Turkish foreign ministry official who requested anonymity
told AFP that Sinirlioglu, who also met with Armenian Foreign
Minister Eduard Nalbandian, would "reassert Turkey’s commitment to the
(reconciliation) process, but will also convey our concerns."

Erdogan’s letter "reaffirms (Ankara’s) commitment to the accord and
stresses that it has a political will for progress so that the accord
achieves its objectives," said the diplomat, who also declined to
be named.

The Turkish-Armenian deal — comprised of two protocols — needs
parliamentary ratification in both countries to take effect, but the
process has been held up by mutual accusations that the other side
is not truly committed to the terms of the agreement.

Ankara is irked by a January ruling of Armenia’s constitutional
court which upheld the legality of the protocols but said they could
not contradict Yerevan’s official position that mass killings of
Armenians under the Ottoman Empire constituted genocide — a label
Turkey fiercely rejects.

Yerevan, for its part, has protested Ankara’s position that the Turkish
parliament is unlikely to ratify the accord without progress in the
Nagorny Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a close
Turkish ally.

The peace process has been marred also by resolutions adopted last
month by a US House of Representatives committee and the Swedish
parliament that both branded the World War I massacres of Armenians
as genocide, infuriating Ankara.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin perished in deportations
and orchestrated killings.

Turkey counters that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as
many Turks perished in civil strife when Armenians rose up against
their Ottoman rulers and sided with Russian forces invading the
crumbling empire.