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Armenia urges speedy progress in rapprochement
Edward Nalbandian, speaking to Reuters late on Friday, said negotiations between Turkey and Armenia were over and that both sides were obliged to move quickly to establish diplomatic relations and open their border under accords signed in October.
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? I think the whole international community is waiting for quick ratification and implementation and respect for the agreements which are in the protocols,” Nalbandian said. “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 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 I killing of Anatolian 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. 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 finalized at the beginning of February.”
Analysts are uncertain how firm the Turkish condition for ratification really is, and say pressure on Ankara could build with next April’s 95th anniversary of the killings, when the US president traditionally issues a statement of commemoration.
Mediators from the US, 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.”
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