TURKEY EVALUATING CONTENT OF ARMENIAN STATEMENT ABOUT PROTOCOLS
news.az
April 22 2010
Azerbaijan
Burak Ozugergin Turkey mulls response after Armenian parliament
freezes protocols.
Turkey is studying what steps to take after Armenia’s ruling
coalition announced it was halting ratification of a historic accord
on normalizing bilateral relations, a Turkish diplomat said Thursday.
"We are evaluating the content of this [Armenian] statement and what
it means" legally and politically, foreign ministry spokesman Burak
Ozugergin told Agence France-Presse.
"In this context, we are also discussing steps that could be taken
in the coming period," he added, without elaborating.
In their statement earlier Thursday, the three parties that form a
majority in Armenia’s parliament accused Turkey of a refusal to ratify
the accord "without preconditions and in a reasonable timeframe."
"Armenia’s political majority considers unacceptable the Turkish
side’s position and, particularly, the latest statements by Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who makes the ratification of
the Protocols conditional on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process,"
the statement said.
"We believe it is necessary to halt this process and remove
discussions of this question from the agenda … of the National
Assembly until the Turkish side is prepared to continue the process
without preconditions," the Armenian statement said.