Armenia says no further talks with Turkey unless protocols ratified

Ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that “we are now waiting for the ratification, as each country has its own ratification procedures.”

Turkey and Armenia signed the two protocols on Oct. 10 in Zurich to reopen their borders, closed since 1993, and restore diplomatic relations. The documents need to be ratified in the Turkish and Armenian parliaments to enter into force. But Turkish leaders have suggested that their parliament is unlikely to ratify the agreements without a breakthrough in international efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Armenia rejects any linkage between efforts to normalize relations with Turkey and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan are to hold talks on Sunday on Nagorno-Karabakh, raising hopes for progress in 15-year efforts to resolve the conflict.

The French Foreign Ministry, in a statement it issued on Thursday, said Armenia’s Serzh Sarksyan and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev would meet on Sunday at the French Consulate in Munich.

The negotiations are led by a trio of mediators from the United States, Russia and France working under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The Munich meeting will be the sixth this year, an intensity fuelling speculation about a possible breakthrough. Mediators say they are making progress, but diplomats caution that neither side appears ready to commit to difficult concessions and sell them to their people.