Azernews.Az

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group, which has striven to resolve the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict for nearly two decades, has displayed a lack of focus to achieve progress in settling the long-standing dispute, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
In an interview broadcast live on state-owned TV channel TRT on Sunday, Erdogan said "there has been serious neglect by the Minsk trio," referring to the three co-chairs of the Minsk Group - France, Russia and the United States.
"They couldn’t bring this issue to a certain point in 20 years. If Russia, the U.S. and France had worked hard within the past 20 years, none of these problems would have emerged; neither the trouble between us and Armenia nor a trouble between Armenia and Azerbaijan would remain," Erdogan said, suggesting that Armenia would have stepped back its occupation of the Azerbaijani territory if the co-chairs had put significant pressure on it.
"The performance of Russia, the U.S. and France was below expectations," he said, as reported by Turkey’s English-language newspaper Today’s Zaman.
Erdogan said Ankara, which last year agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations with Yerevan and reopen their mutual border, insists on seeing progress on the resolution of the Garabagh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in parallel with its own efforts to normalize relations with Yerevan.
"I said it to the US President Obama and Russian leader Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin during my last visits to Washington and Moscow," Erdogan said.
He reiterated Ankara’s uneasiness over the Armenian Constitutional Court decision on January 12 that found protocols signed with Turkey in Zurich on October 10, 2009 in compliance with the Armenian Constitution, as the decision included preconditions and restrictive conditions. He blamed Yerevan for unsuccessful interference "at the very outset of the process."
"Prior to eliminating the consequences of this interference, what can we discuss in our meetings with Armenian officials? Armenia should revisit the issue."
Erdogan said whether or not US Congress will approve Armenian claims on World War I-era genocide in April, the anniversary of the alleged mass killings, will not affect the process of parliamentary approval of the protocols on mending ties signed with Armenia.
"We have already told them. We have a parliament, just like you do, and will not influence it on any given issue. Whatever decision our parliament passes, we will accept it. We have already sent the protocols signed in Switzerland to parliament, while Armenia has unfortunately done so after having altered the protocols in its constitutional court."*