Turkish PM says US Congress vote on “Armenian genocide” was comedy

Turkish PM says US Congress vote on “Armenian genocide” was comedy



06.03.2010, 20.32



ANKARA, March 6 (Itar-Tass) -- Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday’s vote in the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs on a resolution recognising the fact of “Armenian genocide” during the Ottoman Empire was a comedy.

“The scenario that was played out turned out to be a comedy. The country will not put up with the lie that is being forced upon it,” he said.

Erdogan said Turkey could not accept “such parody” and described the initiators of the vote as shortsighted.

The adoption of the resolution forced Ankara to recall its ambassador to Washington for consultations. He said upon arrival in Ankara that the vote had been wrong from the very beginning.

The diplomat did not say when he planned to return to the United States, adding that this would depend on his consultations and the decisions to be made by the government.

The issue of Armenian genocide has tarnished relations between Turkey and Armenia for decades and is one of the stumbling blocks to their improvement. Another problem is Nagorno-Karabakh.

However, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said the normalisation of relations with Turkey was not conditioned on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and recognition of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

Sargsyan said the text of the protocols on the normalisation of relations between Armenia and Turkey did not mention Karabakh or the word “genocide”.

He said Yerevan would seek to resolve the Karabakh issue in accordance with the aspirations of the Armenian population of the disputed enclave.

The president also said that Armenia would not give up attempts to secure international recognition of genocide.

At the same time, he believes that these issues should not be an obstacle to the normalisation of relations between Yerevan and Ankara.

He expressed hope that a peaceful resolution of the Karabakh issue would be achieved, but did not name any deadlines.

According to Sargsyan, this may happen in a distant future.

The first step towards normalisation of bilateral relations, fully severed in 1993 over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, was taken in the autumn of 2008. Turkish President Abdullah Gul visited Yerevan at the invitation Sargsyan to watch a World Cup qualification game between the national football teams of the two countries. He invited Sargsyan to Ankara to a football game in October. Observers dubbed the visits “football diplomacy”, and although some politicians say such informal meeting between the leaders of the two countries should not be taken seriously, experts believe that these contacts can play an important role in the normalisation of relations between the two countries.

Sargyasn said that Armenia was ready to establish normal relations with Turkey without preconditions. “The ball is in the Turkish court,” he said.

He is “deeply and sincerely convinced” that Armenia “must establish good relations with Turkey”, and this conviction did not develop after his election as president.

Sargsyan believes that “such experienced diplomacy as the Turkish one will assess the degree of sincerity” of Armenian authorities in the establishment of relations with Ankara without preconditions.

The president said talks with Turkey had “never discussed the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh and the recognition of Armenian genocide” in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. “We do not condition normalisation of relations between the two countries on Turkey's recognition of Armenian genocide and hope that the Turks do not consider the termination of recognition of genocide [by different countries] as such precondition”, he said.

At the same time, normalisation of relations with Turkey does not mean questioning the fact of genocide in 1915, the president said. “We regret millions of innocent victims and should do everything we can to prevent such tragedies in the future,” Sargsyan said.

“We may have made a mistake in our relations with Turkey”, and they will take a totally different turn, Sargsayan said. But “even if it is a failure”, Armenia will “come out of this process stronger because the international community will see” that Yerevan “is ready to establish relations with Turkey without preconditions”.

Erdogan said earlier that his country would not open its border with Armenia until its troops leave occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

“The Karabakh conflict and the occupation of Azerbaijani territories are the cause, and the closure of the border with Turkey is the effect. Unless the cause is eliminated, the effects will remain,” Erdogan said.

Erdogan said the Turkish-Armenian border would not be opened unless the Nagorno-Karabakh problem was resolved.

“Turkey will not sign the final agreement with Armenia unless Azerbaijan and Armenia reach consensus on Nagorno-Karabakh,” he said.

“We will prepare the infrastructure and do preliminary work, but this [the opening of the border] will depend entirely on the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani problem. It has to be settled first,” the prime minister said.

Erdogan said his country had not and would not take steps that would be detrimental to the national interests of Azerbaijan.

Ankara believes that the issue may be resolved only within the framework of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, he said.

“Unless the Karabakh conflict is resolved, no peace in the region will be possible,” the prime minister said.

“Independence, calm and stability of Azerbaijan are as important to us as independence and stability of Turkey,” Erdogan said.




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