|  YEREVAN, ANKARA (Combined Sources) - Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday slammed efforts by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who in a letter addressed to his Turkish counterpart, urged Turkey to honour its commitment to the protocols.
In his letter to Gul, Sargsyan said: “It is high time to demonstrate the willingness to take a step forward in order to leave a stable and secure region to future generations.”
“Our initiative to normalise Armenia-Turkey relations is in the spotlight of the international community. This is truly a historic moment, and the entire world realises it. The efforts of the countries involved in the region are invaluable in the process of improvement of bilateral relations. I’m confident that it would be impossible to register progress without their mediation. At the same time, I do believe that no matter the level of interest by friendly states for a positive outcome of the process, there are certain steps that can be taken only by our two nations,” said Sargsyan, whose office issued the letter while he was flying over Turkey on an official visit to Great Britain.
“I think you’ll agree that the authorities are to play a key role in breaking the stereotypes between our peoples and establishing an atmosphere of mutual trust. It is only with trust in our efforts, resoluteness and adherence to our principles that we can achieve results. Otherwise, when the words and deeds contradict one another, it brings about mistrust, thus opening a vast field for those who oppose the process. We have to realize that, in this process, time is not working for but against this process,” added Sargsyan.
“If up to now, we have managed to elevate bi-lateral relations to a point, from where the future of normal relations between our countries becomes more real and tangible, today, it is high time to demonstrate the willingness to take a step forward in order to leave a stable and secure region to future generations,” added Sargsyan.
Turkey’s Davutoglu was quick to react and said that Yerevan was not displaying a positive approach to the protocols, saying “It is customary to send messages like that while flying over other states. The leaders of all states do so,” said Davutoglu, as reported by Haberturk news agency.
Davutoglu cited the Armenian Constitutional Court’s decision, which, last month, verified the constitutionality of the protocols, but noted that the process cannot be linked to the Karabakh conflict resolution, nor can it impede Armenia from pursuing the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
“The Armenian Constitutional Court’s decision is not constructive and following these changes the relations between the two countries are again back to where they were in the past,” said Davutoglu, as reported by the Azeri Trend news agency.
The Turkish Foreign Minister insisted that continuing the process would be impossible “unless Armenia backs down from its non-constructive position.”
Davutoglu also said that a recent decision by the US House Foreign Relations Committee to vote on the Armenian Genocide resolution pending in Congress would greatly hinder the normalisation process.
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|  Nicosia Wednesday 10 February - It is not by chance that during a relatively brief period of time, in two neighbouring countries around Turkey, coalition partners first in Armenia and now in Cyprus are exiting their reciprocal governments.
It is not by chance, because what is happening in our region - at the expense of Cyprus and Armenia - is the result of an orchestrated plan to red-carpet Turkey to a hegemonic regional super-power and to secure her with a safe passage to the European continent.
This effort would have been welcome by all, if the Turkish entry was accompanied by traces of real change and not mere cosmetic ones. By traces of change that would truly manifest that a new Turkey is in the making, with European specifications and European values.
As everyone is well aware ... this is not the case.
By only paying lip-service to both friends and foes, Turkey wants a ticket to a Union whose fundamental principles she violates.
Turkey is benefiting from the spoils of the invasion in Cyprus in 1974, continues to deny the reality of the Armenian Genocide and continues her blockade on Armenia, to name but a few.
Turkey now wants medals, for accepting the Annan Plan (that would capitulate the Cyprus Republic in 2004), for ratifying the Protocols (that would solidify the spoils of the Genocide) and wants a free no-cost pass, to the European elite.
ARF Dashnaktsoutiun and EDEK - the two socialist parties in Armenia and Cyprus on the east and south flanks of Turkey - have found themselves on a similar path. To leave a coalition that they joined in an effort to influence their respective governments and not to accept an all-out surrender and a peace process whose cost would be too high to manage, for generations to come.
Although EDEK and ARF Dashnaktsoutiun can both feel they have politically done the right thing in leaving their coalition partners, the process of surrender (or peace, as history will call it) will be completed without them and both Armenia and Cyprus will be unable to show enough clout to resist regional policy decisions, while the coalition exit parties will feel that their parties were not empowered by their people adequately - to make their exit - a statement to be reckoned with, to receptors both at home and across the border.
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Agence France Presse - February 3, 2010 - A top Turkish diplomat will travel to Switzerland and the United States to seek their support over an Armenian court ruling which Ankara says threatens historic reconciliation deals with Yerevan, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Wednesday.
Feridun Sinirlioglu, Undersecretary at the Ministry, "will visit these two countries in the coming days to express our concern" over the ruling last month by the Armenian constitutional court, spokesman Burak Ozugergin told reporters here.
After months of Swiss-mediation and US encouragement, Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols in October to establish diplomatic ties and reopen their shared border, in a historic step towards ending decades of hostility stemming from World War I-era massacres of Armenians under Ottoman Turks.
Yet the process hit the rocks after the Armenian court upheld the legality of the protocols, but underlined that they could not contradict Yerevan's official position that the Armenian mass killings constituted genocide - a label fiercely rejected by Ankara.
Turkey accused Armenia of trying to re-write and set new conditions on the deals, while Yerevan warned that the rapprochement was under threat of collapse.
Ozugergin said Ankara maintained its desire to build better ties with its eastern neighbour.
"There is no problem in Turkey's Armenian opening. But Armenia has a problem with its Turkey opening," he added.
The reconciliation process is also complicated by Ankara's insistence that normalising Turkish-Armenian ties depend on progress between Armenia and neighbouring Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute - a link that Yerevan rejects.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan after ethnic Armenian forces wrested Nagorno-Karabakh from Baku's control in a war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives. |
|  HOVIG'S EUROVISION
DREAMS POSTPONED
Gibrahayer e-magazine - Hovig Demirjian's dreams for representing Cyprus in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo, were postponed last Sunday as he came in third from ten finalists with the song "Goodbye" on a vote that was determined by a combination of a jury and a national televote.
We are certain that Hovig's career is only beginning now and he will be back not only to contest another Eurovision top spot, but to establish himself as a respected voice in Cyprus, Greece and the Armenian Diaspora.
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