Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Armenia Repeats Conditions For Turkish Role In Karabakh Peace
by Emil Danielyan - RFE/RL Armenia Report - 12 December 2000
Posted: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 02:50 am CST

Turkey cannot play a "positive role" in the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict until it normalizes its relations with Armenia and adopts a more balanced stance on the issue "as other big countries of the region have done," official Yerevan said on Tuesday.
Reiterating its official position, the Armenian foreign ministry said in a statement that Ankara, which has lent its full support to Turkic Azerbaijan in the dispute, should first abandon its "narrow-minded ethnic-oriented policy."
The statement followed a new round of shuttle diplomacy by the American, French and Russian co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group which began from talks with senior Turkish officials at the weekend. Foreign Minister Ismail Cem reportedly assured the US and French negotiators, Carey Cavanaugh and Jean-Jacques Gaillarde, that his country is ready to contribute to the settlement of the bloodiest conflict in the South Caucasus. AFP on Tuesday quoted Cavanaugh as saying that "Turkey would be a key player in implementing any peace settlement in the region." "Minsk Group officials anticipate that Turkish firms would be major participants in any economic rehabilitation in the region," he told the French news agency in the Azerbaijani capital Baku. The US diplomat also claimed that Armenian officials reacted positively to the idea of Turkish participation. But it was not clear whether that involves any role in the enforcement of a future peace deal on Karabakh. Armenian officials have ruled out in the past Turkish participation in a would-be peace-keeping force. The unresolved Karabakh dispute is the main stated reason for Ankara's refusal to establish diplomatic ties and reopen the land border with Armenia. Cem reiterated on Saturday that the relations will be normalized only after an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace agreement.
The already strained Turkish-Armenian relations further deteriorated last month after the recognition by several European parliaments of the 1915 genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. AFP quoted unnamed "officials involved in the [Karabakh] peace talks" as saying that Ankara will have to settle this and other disputes with Yerevan before it can take part in the peace process.
Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliev, meanwhile, welcomed a more active Turkish involvement in Karabakh talks at a meeting with the Minsk Group co-chairs on Monday.

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