Washington is glad that Armenia has decided to suspend, rather than cancel altogether, the protocols on rapprochement with Turkey.
The US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, Philip Gordon, commented on the announcement by President Serzh Sargsyan that he was suspending ratification of the protocols in the Armenian parliament.
’We note President Sargsyan’s announcement that Armenia will suspend the discussion of the protocols in its National Assembly,’ Gordon said in Tallinn, where he is attending the NATO Ministerial meeting,News.Amreported.
’President Sargsyan’s announcement makes clear that Armenia has not ended the process but has suspended it until the Turkish side is ready to move forward. We applaud President Sargsyan’s decision to continue to work towards a vision of peace, stability, and reconciliation. We believe that the normalization process carries important benefits for Turkey and Armenia as well as the wider Caucasus region. We continue to urge both sides to keep the door open to pursuing efforts at reconciliation and normalization,’ Gordon said.
His remarks were echoed by US Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley at the daily press briefing on Wednesday.
’I don’t think we’re surprised by the announcement by President Sargsyan,’ Crowley said, according to thetranscriptof the briefing published on theState Department website. ’We had intensive meetings with the Armenians and the Turks here in Washington. We’ve had ongoing contacts with Azerbaijan as well. And we understand that there’s — we had — that both sides had reached a — I won’t say impasse, but kind of reached a hurdle in the process regarding the ratification of the protocols.
’I think we’re encouraged that neither side has walked away from the process, but I think we all recognize that we’ll just need some time to perhaps create some new momentum that allows the process to move forward. So I think this is something that the Armenians had hinted to us that they were prepared to do, and so we’re not surprised by the announcement.’
Asked whether he was afraid that the rapprochement process would collapse, Philip Crowley said, ’Well, I think that we are actually encouraged that, both in the case of Armenia and Turkey, both sides have taken pains to make sure the process doesn’t collapse. That gives us some reason for optimism that over the long term we can find ways to come back to it and try to push forward the protocols again. That was our message to both Turkey and Armenia during the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit: Keep the process going; if you don’t think that this is the right time, that’s fine, we’ll step back and re-evaluate how to move forward.’
France
In acommuniquepublished on thepresidential website, Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed Armenia’s continuing involvement in the normalization process with Turkey.
’The president of the republic welcomes the confirmation by the Armenian head of state of his engagement in favour of the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations, despite the difficulties encountered on both sides in the process of ratifying the protocols signed on 10 October 2009 in Zurich,’ the communique said.
’France encourages the Armenian and Turkish authorities to maintain dialogue and redouble their efforts to achieve rapidly the implementation of the protocols which will make a significant contribution to peace and security in the whole region.’
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