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 ANKARA
(RFE/RL)–Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu opened on
Friday consultations with his country’s top political leaders on
the draft agreements envisaging the normalization of
Turkish-Armenian relations.
Ankara and Yerevan
publicized the two agreements on August 31 and pledged to sign
them after six weeks of “internal political consultations.” The
two protocols have to be ratified by the parliaments of the two
nations before they can come into effect.
“We aim to brief all
political parties, institutions and civic bodies on the
protocols that will be signed,” AFP news agency quoted Davutoglu
as telling reporters after meeting Turkish parliament speaker
Mehmet Ali Sahin.
Davutoglu added that he
also asked for meetings with the leaders of Turkey’s two largest
opposition parties represented in parliament. “We want to hold
the briefings before parliament returns from summer recess in
October,” he said.
Both opposition parties
have said that they will continue to oppose the establishment of
diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey and the
reopening of their border until Armenia agrees to a resolution
of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that would satisfy Azerbaijan.
One of them, the Nationalist Movement Party, has slammed the
Western-backed agreements as a Turkish “surrender” to Armenia.
Turkey’s governing Justice
and Development Party (AKP), which controls the majority of
parliament seats, has yet to formulate its position on the
protocol ratification. Its leader, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, has repeatedly stated in recent months that Ankara will
not normalize ties with Yerevan as long as the Karabakh conflict
remains unresolved.
Many politicians and
pundits in Yerevan predict that Erdogan’s’ government will block
or delay the parliamentary endorsement of the protocols if the
presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan fail to achieve a
breakthrough in their peace talks in the coming months. Some
Turkish commentators have likewise suggested that their
ratification is contingent on a Karabakh deal.
Both the United States and
the European Union have welcomed the Turkish-Armenian agreements
and stressed the need for their speedy implementation. “We urge
Armenia and Turkey to proceed expeditiously, according to the
agreed framework as described in today’s statement,” a U.S.
State Department spokesman said last week.
The protocols’
ratification by the Armenian parliament is widely seen as a
forgone conclusion. Both the Republican Party of President Serzh
Sarkisian and its two junior coalition partners, which enjoy a
comfortable parliamentary majority, have voiced their
unequivocal support for the deal.
Even so, the deal’s most
vocal opponent, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, said on
Friday it is lobbying members of the parliament majority to
break ranks and vote against the ratification. Aghvan Vartanian,
one of the party’s leaders, also told reporters that the ARF
will soon draft and circulate specific amendments which it
believes must be made in the documents. “I think it will be
clear to every educated and thinking person whether they accept
this variant,” he said.
The ARF has warned that
the provisions of the protocols, which mandate the recognition
of Turkey’s territorial integrity, are indirectly tied to the
Karabakh conflict resolution and undermine any provisions that
address peoples’ right to self-determination.
The party has issued an
urgent call for national cooperation and unity in confronting
and reversing the protocols and has said it is willing to work
with any force that intends to fight for Armenia’s national
interests on that end.
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