YEREVAN (RFE/RL) — President Serge Sargisian has threatened to formally annul Armenia’s normalization agreements with Turkey if Ankara continues to link their parliamentary ratification with the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict.
In an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station aired late last Wednesday, healso said that Armenia is prepared for another war with Azerbaijan and insisted that Karabagh’s final status be determined by the disputed territory’s predominantly Armenian population.
Sargisian made clear that the stalled process of Turkish-Armenian normalization could resume only if Turkey’s parliament ratifies “without preconditions” the protocols signed by the two governments in October 2009. “I therefore see no point in starting new negotiations,” he said. “The only continuation can be the ratification of those protocols by Turkey’s parliament.”
“If all continues like this, it is possible that the only way out for us will be the withdrawal of our signature from those protocols, and in that case, those protocols will have no legal force anymore, even after being ratified by Turkey,” he warned.
Shortly after the signing of the protocols in Zurich attended by top diplomats from the United States, Europe and Russia, Ankara made clear that the Turkish parliament will not ratify them without decisive progress in the Karabagh peace process.
