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TURKEY HAS TO BE 'CONSTRUCTIVE' - ARMENIAN LEADER
news.az
Jan 27 2011
Azerbaijan
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has repeated his position that
progress on normalizing relations depends on Turkey.
He made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with Echo Moskvy
radio station, broadcast on 27 January.
Rapprochement between the two countries stalled last year when both
the Turkish and Armenian parliaments refused to ratify two protocols
on normalizing relations signed in October 2009.
Asked by an Ekho Moskvy correspondent about the current state of
Armenian-Turkish relations, the president said: "The question, of
course, is very important for Armenia. It is very important for me as
someone who attempted to re-establish the relationship with Turkey. I
am using the past tense, but this doesn't mean I no longer think about
the issue. However, when we started the process, we weren't absolutely
sure that the relationship would be normalized or the border opened.
"We announced then that the process had two possible outcomes - either
ties would be normalized and the border opened and we would start to
talk about our problems or no progress would be made at all. Anyway
a negative outcome is also a result. Why? Because not everyone knew
the truth. Our friends would say all the time that people who were
interested in a solution to the conflict did not fully understand who
it was that did not want a resolution. It was perfectly clear to all
Armenians that resolution of the issue depended on Turkey."
Sargsyan went on to say that Turkey had raised the conflict with
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh before the rapprochement protocols
were signed.
"We found the inner strength to take the civilized path. At the
beginning everything seemed to be going well. We held talks, there
were concrete projects, and no mention of any preconditions for these
projects, in fact with no talk about conditions at all. There was no
mention of this in oral conversations at all.
"But after we had endorsed these projects - this was the end of March
the year before last - the Turks began to talk about preconditions. At
the start of April US President Obama went to Istanbul and then
after his departure Turkey's prime minister began to talk about some
preconditions, about concessions on Karabakh and about some other
preconditions. This was unacceptable for us, of course."
President Sargsyan said that after the two rapprochement protocols
had been signed in October 2009, it was the Turks who said first that
they could not ratify the protocols in their parliament so Armenia
"had had to stop the process".
Asked whether the process could be continued, Serzh Sargsyan said:
"It's possible only if the Turks ratify the protocols without
preconditions... We are not ready for new talks or the introduction
of changes to the protocols. That is, we're not ready unilaterally. If
the Turks try to include something, then of course we'll try too."
Armenia might consider withdrawing its signature from the protocols,
Sargsyan said. "Even now, when the ball is in their court, they are
still trying to interfere in the Karabakh process, in other processes,
talking about some leadership in the region, about neo-Ottomanism."
Sargsyan then made an emotive attack on Turkish policy.
"If they want to influence what's going on in the region, they have to
be constructive. What does neo-Ottomanism mean? We see this talk as -
by we I mean those people who know the history of the Ottoman Empire -
we see this talk in the same way as the descendants of people destroyed
in concentration camps view talk of the purity of the Aryan race."
From: A. Papazian
news.az
Jan 27 2011
Azerbaijan
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has repeated his position that
progress on normalizing relations depends on Turkey.
He made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with Echo Moskvy
radio station, broadcast on 27 January.
Rapprochement between the two countries stalled last year when both
the Turkish and Armenian parliaments refused to ratify two protocols
on normalizing relations signed in October 2009.
Asked by an Ekho Moskvy correspondent about the current state of
Armenian-Turkish relations, the president said: "The question, of
course, is very important for Armenia. It is very important for me as
someone who attempted to re-establish the relationship with Turkey. I
am using the past tense, but this doesn't mean I no longer think about
the issue. However, when we started the process, we weren't absolutely
sure that the relationship would be normalized or the border opened.
"We announced then that the process had two possible outcomes - either
ties would be normalized and the border opened and we would start to
talk about our problems or no progress would be made at all. Anyway
a negative outcome is also a result. Why? Because not everyone knew
the truth. Our friends would say all the time that people who were
interested in a solution to the conflict did not fully understand who
it was that did not want a resolution. It was perfectly clear to all
Armenians that resolution of the issue depended on Turkey."
Sargsyan went on to say that Turkey had raised the conflict with
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh before the rapprochement protocols
were signed.
"We found the inner strength to take the civilized path. At the
beginning everything seemed to be going well. We held talks, there
were concrete projects, and no mention of any preconditions for these
projects, in fact with no talk about conditions at all. There was no
mention of this in oral conversations at all.
"But after we had endorsed these projects - this was the end of March
the year before last - the Turks began to talk about preconditions. At
the start of April US President Obama went to Istanbul and then
after his departure Turkey's prime minister began to talk about some
preconditions, about concessions on Karabakh and about some other
preconditions. This was unacceptable for us, of course."
President Sargsyan said that after the two rapprochement protocols
had been signed in October 2009, it was the Turks who said first that
they could not ratify the protocols in their parliament so Armenia
"had had to stop the process".
Asked whether the process could be continued, Serzh Sargsyan said:
"It's possible only if the Turks ratify the protocols without
preconditions... We are not ready for new talks or the introduction
of changes to the protocols. That is, we're not ready unilaterally. If
the Turks try to include something, then of course we'll try too."
Armenia might consider withdrawing its signature from the protocols,
Sargsyan said. "Even now, when the ball is in their court, they are
still trying to interfere in the Karabakh process, in other processes,
talking about some leadership in the region, about neo-Ottomanism."
Sargsyan then made an emotive attack on Turkish policy.
"If they want to influence what's going on in the region, they have to
be constructive. What does neo-Ottomanism mean? We see this talk as -
by we I mean those people who know the history of the Ottoman Empire -
we see this talk in the same way as the descendants of people destroyed
in concentration camps view talk of the purity of the Aryan race."
From: A. Papazian