TURKISH PARLIAMENT WON’T RATIFY ARMENIAN PROTOCOLS, SAYS ERDOGAN

Asbarez
Apr 13th, 2010

WASHINGTON (RFE/RL)-Turkey’s parliament would not ratify the
fence-mending agreements with Armenia if they were put to a vote now,
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was reported on Tuesday to
have told President Serzh Sarkisian during their talks in Washington.

Neither leader made any public statements on the results of the talks
held on the sidelines of the ongoing nuclear security summit hosted by
U.S. President Barack Obama. The official Turkish Anatolia news agency
said they agreed to assign their foreign ministers to look for ways
of implementing the two Turkish-Armenian protocols signed last October.

According to the Turkish daily "Sabah," Erdogan told Sarkisian that
the existing "political atmosphere" does not bode well for their
ratification by Turkey’s Grand National Assembly. He blamed it on
recent decisions by U.S. and Swedish lawmakers to recognize the 1915
massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

"If the protocols are brought to the agenda of the parliament while
U.S. and Swedish parliaments are taking decisions on the issue, they
will be rejected," he reportedly said. "Sabah" also quoted Erdogan
as also linking protocol ratification with decisive progress in
international efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict.

The Turkish premier similarly stressed the importance of a Karabakh
settlement for the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations before
departing to Washington. He said he made this clear in his earlier
meetings with the presidents of the United States, Russia and France.

The three nations have been co-chairing the OSCE’s so-called Minsk
Group on Karabakh.

"I told [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy that opening the border
[with Armenia] is no big deal," Erdogan told journalists on Sunday,
according to "Today’s Zaman" daily. "I proposed that he take a car
or train and then we pass through the border together as soon as the
Minsk Group fulfills its duty."

Addressing members of the Armenian community in the U.S. later on
Monday, Sarkisian hinted that Ankara is sticking to its preconditions
for establishing diplomatic relations with Yerevan and opening the
Turkish-Armenian border. "I met this morning with the Turkish prime
minister," he said. "Our position was and is always is very clear:
Turkey can’t talk with Armenian and Armenians with the language of
preconditions. We will simply not allow that."