{"id":16620,"date":"2010-01-26T19:30:59","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T19:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=16620"},"modified":"2014-01-05T17:53:38","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T15:53:38","slug":"armenia-warns-of-breakdown-in-turkey-reconciliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/01\/26\/armenia-warns-of-breakdown-in-turkey-reconciliation\/","title":{"rendered":"Armenia warns of breakdown in Turkey reconciliation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n

By Mariam Harutunian (AFP) \u2013 7 hours ago<\/p>\n

YEREVAN \u2014 Historic efforts to establish ties between Armenia and Turkey may break down, the Armenian foreign minister warned on Friday, blaming Ankara for obstructing the process.<\/p>\n

“If Turkey is not ready to ratify the protocols, if it continues to speak in ultimatums, to set preconditions and to obstruct the process, then I do not exclude that negotiations will break down,” Eduard Nalbandian said at a press conference.<\/p>\n

His comments came after Armenian and Turkish efforts to establish ties after decades of hostility hit fresh snags this week as the two sides traded accusations of trying to modify the landmark deal.<\/p>\n

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Yerevan of trying to “doctor” the agreement, saying that a ruling by Armenia’s Constitutional Court this month had set new conditions.<\/p>\n

Nalbandian dismissed Ankara’s accusations as “absurd.”<\/p>\n

“Statements by Turkey that the Constitutional Court’s decision creates preconditions or contradicts the principles of the protocols… do not correspond with reality and are absurd,” he said.<\/p>\n

“These statements will not be believed, not only in the international community but also in Turkey itself,” he said.<\/p>\n

Yerevan has accused Turkey of trying to set new conditions on the deal by linking it with Armenia’s conflict with Turkish ally Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region.<\/p>\n

Nalbandian said he did not expect a breakthrough in talks on Karabakh in the near future.<\/p>\n

“It is difficult to say what will happen in 2010. If the Azerbaijani side shows a more constructive approach then there may be changes. But I cannot say that in the near future we can expect a breakthrough,” he said.<\/p>\n

Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols in October to establish diplomatic ties and reopen their shared border, in a deal hailed as a historic step towards ending decades of hostility stemming from World War I-era massacres of Armenians under Ottoman Turkish rule.<\/p>\n

Armenia’s Constitutional Court on January 12 upheld the legality of the agreement, but also said the two protocols “cannot be interpreted” to contradict a paragraph in Armenia’s 1990 declaration of independence that refers to “the 1915 genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia.”<\/p>\n

Turkey’s refusal to establish ties with Armenia stems in part from Yerevan’s attempts to have the massacres internationally recognised as genocide.<\/p>\n

References to “Western Armenia” are also sensitive as some in Turkey see use of the term as making territorial claims on areas in eastern Anatolia.<\/p>\n

Neither country’s parliament has yet ratified the two protocols.<\/p>\n

Turkish officials have repeatedly said the agreements will not be ratified without progress in the dispute over Nagorny Karabakh.<\/p>\n

Backed by Yerevan, ethnic Armenian separatists seized control of Karabakh and seven surrounding districts from Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives.<\/p>\n

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in a show of solidarity with Azerbaijan — with which it has strong ethnic, trade and energy links — against Yerevan’s support for the enclave’s separatists.<\/p>\n

The head of Armenia’s parliament said last month that it will not ratify the deal before the Turkish parliament does.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mariam Harutunian (AFP) \u2013 7 hours ago YEREVAN \u2014 Historic efforts to establish ties between Armenia and Turkey may break down, the Armenian foreign minister warned on Friday, blaming Ankara for obstructing the process. “If Turkey is not ready to ratify the protocols, if it continues to speak in ultimatums, to set preconditions and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":671544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenian-question"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}