October 10, 2009, Zurich. Foreign Ministers of Armenia (left) and Turkey signing the protocols. [Photolure]
Posted on 10/16/2010 12:44:07 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Last year on October 10, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey signed protocols on the normalization of bilateral relations between the two countries and opening of the Armenian-Turkish border. The Armenian press called foreign office heads of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries -- Hillary Clinton (USA), Sergey Lavrov (Russia) and Bernard Kouchner (France) -- "the so-called curators and warrantors of fulfillment of the commitments" envisaged by the protocols.
Very soon, however, it became clear that neither separately, nor collectively were they able to do anything that would make Ankara bound to fulfill its commitment.
Turkey refused to discharge its liability to unblock the Armenian-Turkish border, saying that to do so would offend Azerbaijan. It's hard to state unambiguously that it was Azerbaijan's factor that played the decisive role in Turkey's stand on this issue, because Ankara's most important task has been and is to prevent the international community from further recognizing the Armenian Genocide.
The resulting limbo favors Turkey, since it now has a very convenient excuse at hand to blackmail the international community by saying that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by another country might hinder the "difficult process of the dialogue".
(Excerpt) Read more at armenianow.com ...
October 10, 2009, Zurich. Foreign Ministers of Armenia (left) and Turkey signing the protocols. [Photolure]
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