TURKEY: COURT RULING COULD HURT PEACE WITH ARMENIA
Reuters
Jan 20 2010
ANKARA, Jan 20 (Reuters) – Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said
on Wednesday a ruling by a court in Armenia could derail efforts to
end a century of hostility between the two neighbours.
Armenia’s Constitutional Court last week rejected opposition complaints
over the legality of peace accords between Ankara and Yerevan that
call for the establishment of diplomatic relations and the opening
of the Turkish-Armenian border.
But Erdogan said the court’s reference to the mass killing of Armenians
by Ottoman Turks and its implicit rejection of any link between the
peace accords and a resolution to the frozen conflict between Armenia
and Turkish ally Azerbaijan meant "the process will be challenged
unless this mistake is corrected.
"It’s definitely unacceptable to Turkey," Erdogan told a news
conference during a visit to Saudi Arabia.
"We have never taken the protocol to our Constitutional Court. We took
it directly to our parliament, without making changes. We didn’t employ
a mediator on the text. We didn’t carry out any read-between-the-lines
operations. This is a proof of our sincerity.
Armenia has tried to change the text."
Armenia said its foreign minister, Edward Nalbandian, expressed
"bewilderment" at the Turkish reaction during a telephone call on
Wednesday with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu and urged
Ankara to move ahead with ratification.
AZERI BACKLASH
The accords, which need parliamentary approval in both countries,
have been gathering dust since they were signed in October 2009,
and Turkey has faced a backlash from its close ally Azerbaijan,
a key energy supplier to the West.
Turkey has repeatedly said progress on full normalisation with Armenia
depends on Yerevan making concessions in its festering conflict with
Azerbaijan over the breakaway mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh,
where Christian ethnic Armenians threw off Azeri rule with Armenian
support in the early 1990s.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with
fellow Muslim Azerbaijan during the fighting.
Armenia, Russia’s strategic and economic ally in the South Caucasus,
rejects linking opening the border with Turkey to progress towards
peace with Azerbaijan.
Rapprochement, backed by the West and Russia, would bring big economic
benefits to poor, landlocked Armenia, while Turkey would burnish its
credentials as a potential EU member and strengthen its influence in
the Caucasus, a region criss-crossed by pipelines carrying oil and
gas to the West.
But analysts say Turkey is worried by the angry backlash from
Azerbaijan, with the traditional allies now bogged down in protracted
negotiations over the price of Azeri gas supplies.
The press service of the Armenian Foreign Ministry said Nalbandian was
surprised that Turkey could see any contradictions or preconditions
in the court ruling.
"Nalbandian expressed concern at the fact that since October there has
not been any progress in Turkey in the process of ratification," it
said. (Additional reporting by Hasmik Lazarian in Yerevan; Writing
by Ibon Villelabeitia; Editing by Jon Hemming)