Category: Southern Caucasus

Sarkisian Urges Turkey To ‘Repent’

President Serzh Sarkisian has urged Turkey to “repent” for the World War One-era massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and expressed confidence that Ankara will eventually recognize them as genocide.

France – President Serzh Sarkisian speaks at an official reception in Marseille, 7Dec2011.

“We believe that Turkey must repent,” he said during a visit to France’s second largest city of Marseille late on Wednesday. “That is neither a precondition nor a desire to exact revenge. Turkey must come face to face with its history.”

“One day Turkey’s leadership will find the strength to reassess its approaches to the Armenian Genocide,” Sarkisian said, speaking at an official reception organized in his honor by Marseille’s Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin and attended by prominent members of the local Armenian community.

“Sooner or later Turkey, which considers itself a European country, will have a truly European leadership that will bow its head at the Tsitsernakabert [genocide memorial in Yerevan,]” claimed the Armenian leader. “The sooner the better, but that is up to the Turkish people.”

There was no immediate reaction to the remarks from Ankara which vehemently denies that some 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman Turks in 1915-1918.

France – President Serzh Sarkisian speaks at an official reception in Marseille, 7Dec2011.

Successive Turkish governments have said that Armenians died in much smaller numbers and as a result of civil strife, rather than a premeditated government effort to exterminate a key Christian minority in the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

Turkish leaders reacted angrily after French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged them to stop denying the genocide during an October visit to Armenia. “Collective denial is even worse than individual denial,” Sarkozy said after laying flowers at the Tsitsernakabert memorial. He also implicitly threatened to enact a law that would make Armenian genocide denial a crime in France.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip accused Sarkozy of playing the anti-Turkish card to secure reelection next year and warned of serious damage to relations between France and Turkey.

By contrast, Sarkisian was full of praise for the French leader. “We must simply be grateful to the wise president of this beautiful country,” he told the mostly French-Armenian audience.

In his speech, Sarkisian did not mention the future of the Turkish-Armenian normalization agreements signed two years ago. Earlier this year, he threatened to withdraw Yerevan’s signature from the agreements if Ankara continues to make their parliamentary ratification contingent on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

via Sarkisian Urges Turkey To ‘Repent’.

December 11, 2011
Switzerland demands from Azerbaijan to accede to Istanbul Watch Convention

Baku, Fineko/abc.az. Switzerland has demanded from Azerbaijan to accede to the international rules of watch-making industry turnover.

According to the protocol of the 5th meeting of the Azerbaijan-Switzerland Intergovernmental Commission on Trade & Economic Cooperation held in Baku this week, Switzerland proposed Azerbaijan to join the Istanbul Convention to facilitate import of watch-making industry products. Azerbaijan declared its readiness to study the relevant proposals of the Swiss side.

In addition, the Swiss side expressed readiness to increase assistance to Azerbaijan in the process of entering into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and integration into world economy. At that, within the framework of talks on Azerbaijan’s admission to WTO Switzerland asks the country to cut customs duties for watches.

via Azerbaijan Business Center – Switzerland demands from Azerbaijan to accede to Istanbul Watch Convention.

December 11, 2011
Turkey condemned French Senate

According to Turkish media Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a message and expressed his dissatisfaction over French Senate legal issues committee decision on criminalizing Armenian Genocide denial. The resolution was accepted by the French committee accepted the resolution on December 7.

Turkish MFA hoped that these steps won’t continue and added that these steps damaged Turkish-French relations. Turkey also noted that France would have a constructive investment in solving Armenian-Turkish historical conflict by dialogue.

Remind that the draft will be discussed at French Senate soon.

via Turkey condemned French Senate.

December 11, 2011
U.S. Again Tells Turkey To Honor Armenia Accords

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden pressed Turkey to unconditionally ratify its Western-backed normalization agreements with Armenia “in the months ahead” during a visit to Ankara and Istanbul that ended at the weekend.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul (left) receives U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at the Presidential Palace in Ankara on December 2.

A senior official from the administration of President Barack Obama said the fate of the two Turkish-Armenian protocols signed in 2009 was on the agenda of Biden’s talks with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and parliament speaker Cemil Cicek.

The official said that during a breakfast meeting with Cicek on December 2, Biden “applauded the fact that the protocols for normalization with Armenia were back on the agenda of the [Turkish] parliament.”

“And he expressed his hope that the parliament will be able to act on those protocols in the months ahead,” the official told U.S. journalists traveling with Biden.

The U.S. vice president met Gul later on December 2 before traveling to Istanbul for separate talks with Erdogan held on December 4.

“On Armenia, he said to the prime minister what he had raised with President Gul, as well — the hope that now that the protocols for normalization were back on the agenda of the parliament, that Turkey would be able to move on those protocols in the months ahead,” the Obama administration official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conveyed a similar message to the Turkish government when she visited Istanbul in July.

However, the Turkish leaders and Erdogan in particular have repeatedly made clear that the protocols will not be ratified by Turkey’s parliament before a breakthrough in international efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Armenia rejects this precondition. President Serzh Sarkisian threatened earlier this year to withdraw Yerevan’s signature from the accord if the Turks stick to the Karabakh linkage.

According to the Istanbul-based “Hurriyet Daily News,” Biden told Gul that Ankara should “speed up the normalization process with Armenia” if it wants the Obama administration to block further resolutions in the U.S. Congress recognizing the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

This warning attributed to Biden could be seized upon by Armenian critics of the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, who say it has helped Ankara to thwart a broader international recognition of the Armenian genocide.

They were already incensed when Biden claimed last year that Sarkisian himself had asked the White House not to use the word genocide with regard to the killing of some 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians while Turkish-Armenian negotiations are in progress. Both official Yerevan and the U.S. Embassy in Armenia denied that claim, which was videotaped by an Armenian-American activist and available on YouTube.com.

Biden strongly supported Armenian genocide resolutions debated by Congress when he was a member of the U.S. Senate.

compiled from agency reports

via U.S. Again Tells Turkey To Honor Armenia Accords.

December 6, 2011
Armenian-populated province was sold to Turkey for 7 million francs

ISTANBUL. – The Hatay Province (Sanjak of Alexandretta), which had passed to France after World War I, was given to Turkey, in 1939, for a mere 7 million francs.

Turkey’s Vatan daily’s correspondent obtained a document, whereby it became apparent that Turkey’s central bank had paid France 7 million francs for the Hatay Province. It is noted that it was because of this money that Hatay Province was handed over to Turkey. The Turkish president of the time, Ismet Inonu, PM Refik Saydam, and all the Turkish ministers had signed under the respective agreements.

To note, a considerable number of Armenians used to live in Hatay Province, but they left their lands after 1939. Hatay’s Armenian-populated Vakif village, however, exists to this day.

via Armenian-populated province was sold to Turkey for 7 million francs | Armenia News – NEWS.am.

December 4, 2011
Turkey will sign protocols if Armenia surrenders 2 regions

Turkey-Armenia protocols can still be brought forward to the Turkish Parliament and be voted on, European Program Director at the International Crisis Group Sabine Freizer told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

In an e-mail letter she commented on recent statement by Turkish President Abdullah Gul that the protocols cannot be considered dead.

The expert considers Turkish parliament is unlikely to vote until there is some positive movement on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

In October 2009 Armenia and Turkey signed protocols in Zurich to normalize diplomatic relations between the states. The documents had to be ratified in both countries’ parliaments. However, in 2010 the Armenian president suspended the process due to Turkey’s non-constructive stance.

Ankara set preconditions and linked the reconciliation process to resolution of the Karabakh conflict.Turkey decided to remove the protocols from parliament’s agenda this August.

“Even though there is no legal link between the two issues, in practice and for political reasons Turkey has linked them. Ankara has not clearly defined what it means by ‘progress’ however, it could possibly mean the signature of an agreement on basic principles or the start of withdrawal by Armenian forces of one or two of the occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh,” she said.

According to Freizer, such a withdrawal would indeed change the whole dynamic in the region towards peace and development. “Neither Armenia nor Nagorno-Karabakh have ever claimed sovereignty over territories like Fizuli,” she said.

Commenting on the protocols, she stressed that even if they are not yet signed, “normalization between Armenia and Turkey is moving forward with regards to contacts in many fields.”

via Turkey will sign protocols if Armenia surrenders 2 regions – Sabine Freizer | Armenia News – NEWS.am.

December 4, 2011