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ARMENIA-TURKEY PEACE ACCORDS WITHDRAWN
The Daily Star, Lebanon
Feb 17 2015
Reuters
YEREVAN: Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan said Monday he withdrew
from parliament landmark peace accords with Turkey, setting further
back U.S.-backed efforts to bury a century of hostility between
the neighbors.
The two countries signed accords in October 2009 to establish
diplomatic relations and open their land border, trying to overcome the
legacy of the World War I mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.
The process had been deadlocked by nationalists on both sides,
and Ankara and Yerevan have accused the other of trying to rewrite
the texts and setting new conditions. Many Armenians want Turkey to
recognize the 1915 mass killings as genocide and pay reparations,
proposals Ankara balks at.
Neither parliament has approved the deal, which would bring huge
economic gains for poor, landlocked Armenia, burnish Turkey's
credentials as an EU candidate and boost its clout in the strategic
South Caucasus.
"We were ready for a fully fledged settlement in our relations
with Turkey by ratifying these protocols, but we were also ready
for failure," Sarksyan said in a letter that had been sent to the
parliament, his press service said.
He blamed Turkey for "absence of the political will" in finding a
solution. "We have nothing to hide and it should be clear for the
international community whose fault it was that the last closed
European border was not open," he said.
Armenia, a country of 3.2 million, is approaching the 100th-anniversary
of the killings, when tens of thousands lay flowers at a hilltop
monument in the capital April 24th.
U.S. President Barack Obama will issue a statement to mark the
massacres' anniversary, a defining element of Armenian national
identity and thorn in the side of Turkey.
Turkey accepts many Armenians died in partisan fighting beginning
in 1915 but denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and that it
amounted to genocide - a term used by some Western historians and
foreign parliaments.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Feb-17/287692-armenia-turkey-peace-accords-withdrawn.ashx
The Daily Star, Lebanon
Feb 17 2015
Reuters
YEREVAN: Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan said Monday he withdrew
from parliament landmark peace accords with Turkey, setting further
back U.S.-backed efforts to bury a century of hostility between
the neighbors.
The two countries signed accords in October 2009 to establish
diplomatic relations and open their land border, trying to overcome the
legacy of the World War I mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.
The process had been deadlocked by nationalists on both sides,
and Ankara and Yerevan have accused the other of trying to rewrite
the texts and setting new conditions. Many Armenians want Turkey to
recognize the 1915 mass killings as genocide and pay reparations,
proposals Ankara balks at.
Neither parliament has approved the deal, which would bring huge
economic gains for poor, landlocked Armenia, burnish Turkey's
credentials as an EU candidate and boost its clout in the strategic
South Caucasus.
"We were ready for a fully fledged settlement in our relations
with Turkey by ratifying these protocols, but we were also ready
for failure," Sarksyan said in a letter that had been sent to the
parliament, his press service said.
He blamed Turkey for "absence of the political will" in finding a
solution. "We have nothing to hide and it should be clear for the
international community whose fault it was that the last closed
European border was not open," he said.
Armenia, a country of 3.2 million, is approaching the 100th-anniversary
of the killings, when tens of thousands lay flowers at a hilltop
monument in the capital April 24th.
U.S. President Barack Obama will issue a statement to mark the
massacres' anniversary, a defining element of Armenian national
identity and thorn in the side of Turkey.
Turkey accepts many Armenians died in partisan fighting beginning
in 1915 but denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and that it
amounted to genocide - a term used by some Western historians and
foreign parliaments.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Feb-17/287692-armenia-turkey-peace-accords-withdrawn.ashx