ARMENIA REJECTS ‘PRECONDITIONS’ ON TURKEY DEAL

Agence France Presse
April 12, 2010 Monday 7:52 PM GMT

Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian told Turkey’s prime minister
Monday that Yerevan would not accept "preconditions" on reconciliation
efforts between the two countries, his office said.

Sarkisian spoke with Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of a
US nuclear summit in Washington, the Armenian presidency said in a
statement, at a meeting arranged last week in a bid to revive the
floundering efforts.

"I met this morning with the prime minister of Turkey. Our position
was and remains clear: Turkey cannot speak to Armenia and Armenians
in the language of preconditions," Sarkisian was quoted as saying in
the statement.

The two neighbours signed a landmark deal in October to establish
diplomatic relations and open their border after decades of hostility.

But parliamentary ratification of the deal has stalled in both
countries over the contentious issue of World War I-era massacres of
Armenians under Ottoman Turkey, which Yerevan insists constituted
genocide. Another sticking point is Turkey’s support for Armenia’s
foe Azerbaijan in their dispute over the rebel Nagorny Karabakh region.

"We are not prepared in any way to question the issue of the genocide
or to pretend that Turkey may play any positive role in the negotiating
process for resolving the Karabakh question," Sarkisian said.

The deal has been snagged by disagreements over its terms, with both
sides accusing each other of lacking true commitment to reconciliation.

Ankara is irked by a January ruling of Armenia’s constitutional court
which cleared the deal but said it could not contradict Yerevan’s
official line that Armenians were victims of genocide under the
Ottoman Empire — a label Turkey fiercely rejects.

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

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

Erdogan was to meet US President Barack Obama Tuesday on the sidelines
of the summit, just over a week after Turkey decided to return its
ambassador to Washington after a row over the US House vote.

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

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.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress