Armenian FM: Why did we sign two Protocols if we are not going to ratify and implement them?

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia's foreign minister has rejected Turkish calls for concessions in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange for the historic rapprochement between Yerevan and Ankara.



Speaking to Reuters late on Friday, Edward Nalbandian said negotiations between Turkey and Armenia were over and both sides were obliged to move quickly to establish diplomatic relations and open their border under accords signed this month.



"Why did we sign two protocols if we are not going to ratify and implement them?" Nalbandian, 53, said in an interview in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.



"I think the whole international community is waiting for quick ratification and implementation and respect for the agreements which are in the protocols," he said.



"If one of the sides will delay and create some obstacles in the way of ratification and implementation, I think it could bear all the responsibility for the negative consequences." Nalbandian said the Armenian-Turkish thaw and the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations were "two separate processes."

"This is not only the Armenian approach but the approach of the international community," he said, adding that negotiations between Turkey and Armenia were over. "Negotiations were finalised at the beginning of February."



Mediators from the United States, Russia and France say they are making progress towards a peace deal on Nagorno-Karabakh in talks between Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and Azerbaijan's Ilham Aliyev.



But Nalbandian played down talk of an imminent breakthrough. There is a "positive dynamic", he said. "But to say that tomorrow or in one month's time or in a very short period of time we will come to the agreement, I don't think this is very serious."