Armenia and Turkey are waiting for each other to take the next step toward improved relations. The Turkish foreign minister says a positive development in Azerbaijani-Armenian relations will be good for the Turkish Parliament to pass the protocols. Meanwhile, experts in Armenia say Armenian lawmakers may delay voting on the protocols until the Turkish parliament makes its judgment
After taking the first major step toward normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations and signing historic protocols on Oct. 10, both sides now await the next move “from the other party.
In an interview with Al Jazeera television Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the government would not impose pressure on Parliament to accept the protocols but that a positive development in Azerbaijani-Armenian relations would affect the parliamentary approval process positively. The psychological and political atmosphere had significance for such agreements to be approved, he said.
Asked whether the acceptance of the protocols by the Turkish Parliament depended on a development in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is the cause of the Azerbaijani-Armenia conflict, Davutoglu said [no matter when they are approved] the protocols would have a positive effect on stability in the southern Caucasus, especially in the resolution of the Azerbaijan-Armenian conflict.
“A development in this field would definitely have a positive effect on the acceptance process. However, if the situation gets worse or if there is no longer hope that there can be a positive development, in that case our parliamentarians will have a negative inclination. This is why we need to work on a positive scenario now,” he said.
The Turkish foreign minister said Azerbaijan is a strategic ally and that the subject is also a domestic political issue for Turkey.
When asked whether Armenian claims of genocide could be confirmed after the proposed commission researches the events of 1915, Davutoglu said he, himself, is an academic and historian and historical facts should be researched based on historical documents.
Meanwhile, Armenian lawmakers may delay voting on the protocols until the Turkish Parliament has considered the measure, reported Bloomberg on Tuesday. Armenia will probably wait for Turkey to act on the treaty, said Nairi Petrosyan, a spokesman for the parliament in Yerevan.
Many Armenians are concerned the treaty could lead to a compromise on Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia's demand that Turkey recognize the events of 1915 as genocide.
“The Armenian public is confused because of a lack of information,” Richard Giragosian, director of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, said by telephone from Yerevan on Monday in an interview with Bloomberg. “The vast majority supports opening the border and normalizing relations, but the question is: At what price? What we're seeing is a rather mistaken
“I don't see any real problems on passage in the Armenian parliament. The real test will come from the Turkish side,“Giragosian said.
He said Turkish lawmakers are likely to postpone voting on the protocols until next February or March to coincide with the 95th anniversary of the 1915 events. Giragosian said Turkey is trying to maximize the political benefits. Turkey hopes normalizing ties with Armenia will assuage European Union opponents of Turkish membership.
Events of 1915 In the Oct. 10 agreement, Turkey and Armenia pledged to create a joint commission of historians to investigate the events of 1915. Armenia says as many as 1.5 million Armenian people were systematically killed. Turkey cites a lower figure and says the deaths were the result of civil strife in which many Turks were also killed.
Armenia's political opposition has criticized the government for moving too fast to repair relations with Turkey before first resolving the disputes. „The opposition has never said we don't want normalized ties,” Arman Mysinian, a leader of the opposition National Congress of Armenia, told Bloomberg. “But the genocide and Karabakh should not have been included in the foreign policy agenda.”
Samvel Farmanyan, a spokesman for Serge Sarkisian, said the agreement does not call into question the legitimacy of Armenia's position on the events of 1915 or Nagorno-Karabakh and that the government would never compromise.
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