Armenia rejects Turkish demand on rebel region

YEREVAN (Reuters) – Armenia’s foreign minister has rejected Turkish calls for concessions in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange for the historic rapprochement between Yerevan and Ankara.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian speaks during an interview with Reuters at his office in Yerevan, October 30, 2009. Nalbandian has rejected Turkish calls for concessions in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange for the historic rapprochement between Yerevan and Ankara. (REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili)

peaking to Reuters late on Friday, Edward Nalbandian said negotiations between Turkey and Armenia were over and both sides were obliged to move quickly to establish diplomatic relations and open their border under accords signed this month.

Turkish leaders say they want to see progress in negotiations between Armenia and Turkish ally Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh before parliament in Ankara ratifies the accords, a link Armenia rejects.

“Why did we sign two protocols if we are not going to ratify and implement them?” Nalbandian, 53, said in an interview in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

“I think the whole international community is waiting for quick ratification and implementation and respect for the agreements which are in the protocols,” he said, speaking in English.

“If one of the sides will delay and create some obstacles in the way of ratification and implementation, I think it could bear all the responsibility for the negative consequences.”

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with fellow Muslim Azerbaijan in its war with Armenian-backed ethnic Armenians in the mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Former Soviet Armenia and NATO-member Turkey have no diplomatic ties, but a relationship haunted by the World War One killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, a defining element of Armenian national identity.

But after a year of negotiations, Armenia and Turkey this month signed accords looking to bury a century of hostility.

“SEPARATE PROCESSES”

The deal has encountered opposition in both countries, but full rapprochement and an open border carries huge significance for Turkey’s clout as a regional power, for its bid to join the European Union and for landlocked Armenia’s crisis-hit economy.

But Ankara’s Turkic-speaking ally Azerbaijan has reacted angrily, fearing it will lose leverage over Armenians in their conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The dispute threatens to tilt energy policy in Azerbaijan, a supplier of oil and gas to the West through Turkey but which is also being courted by Russia.

Diplomats and analysts say Turkey, before it ratifies the accords, is seeking at least a small sign of progress in negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, where a fragile ceasefire has held since 1994 but a peace deal has never been agreed.

Such a link is political dynamite for Armenians. The domestic opposition and Armenia’s huge and influential diaspora say Turkey must first recognise last century’s killings as genocide before ties can be restored.

Nalbandian said the Armenian-Turkish thaw and the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations were “two separate processes.”

“This is not only the Armenian approach but the approach of the international community,” he said, adding that negotiations between Turkey and Armenia were over.

“Negotiations were finalised at the beginning of February.”

Analysts are uncertain how firm the Turkish condition for ratification really is, and say pressure on Ankara could mount with next April’s 95th anniversary of the killings, when the U.S. president traditionally issues a statement of commemoration.

Armenia says the killings were genocide, and wants U.S. President Barack Obama to stick to an election campaign pledge to say the same. Turkey rejects the term, saying many people died on both sides of the conflict.

Mediators from the United States, Russia and France say they are making progress towards a peace deal on Nagorno-Karabakh in talks between Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev.

But Nalbandian played down talk of an imminent breakthrough.

There is a “positive dynamic”, he said. “But to say that tomorrow or in one month’s time or in a very short period of time we will come to the agreement, I don’t think this is very serious.”

source: Toronto Star