Lack of progress by Azerbaijan and Armenia towards resolving a territorial dispute would affect Turkey’s parliamentary approval of separate accords to normalise ties with Armenia, a senior ruling party member said.
“If there’s progress on these issues, parliament’s endorsement of the protocols can be extremely rapid,” Murat Mercan, chairman of the ruling AK Party parliamentary foreign affairs committee, told Reuters late on Wednesday.
“I expect the draft law will be sent to parliament a few days after it is signed by the cabinet. Once signed by the government, there is no sense in delaying it any longer.”
Christian Armenia and Muslim Turkey are also expected to sign historic accords on Saturday regularising ties after a century of hostility. That would bolster Turkey’s standing with the European Union, which it hopes to join, while boosting Armenia’s economy and improving security in the South Caucasus, a key transit corridor for oil and gas supplies to the West.
But the agreements must then be approved by the parliaments of both countries.
“Lack of progress towards the resolution of Armenian-Azeri problems will certainly affect the parliamentary process,” Mercan told Reuters. Although he does not set policy, his words could be indicative of the AK Party-dominated parliament’s position when it receives the protocols for ratification.
Analysts say much hinges on the outcome of a meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Thursday to discuss their
Ethnic Armenian separatists, backed by Armenia, fought a war in the early 1990s to throw off Azerbaijan’s control over the enclave. An estimated 30,000 people were killed. A fragile ceasefire is in force but a peace accord has never been signed.
Nationalists in Turkey, Azerbaijan’s ally in the region, are opposed to any concessions to Armenia.
Few analysts expect a breakthrough in the talks in Moldova.
“Of course we would like to see some progress on Nagorno-Karabakh, but we are not expecting all their problems to be resolved today,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference in Ankara on Thursday.
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