Azernews.Az

Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian on Friday sent the October 2009 agreement on normalizing the country’s relations with Turkey to parliament for approval.
Armenia Today news agency quoted Galust Saakyan, the head of the ruling Republic Party’s parliamentary faction, that the submission of the accords is merely a technical procedure and the documents will not be discussed in the Armenian parliament if Turkey does not ratify them.
"Our patience is running out. If Ankara continues dragging out time, we will raise the issue of revoking the signatures on those documents," Saakyan claimed.
The protocols, signed in Zurich in October 2009, by Turkey, Azerbaijan’s ally, and Armenia, with whom Azerbaijan faces a long-standing conflict over Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh, seek to establish diplomatic relations and reopen the two countries’ sealed borders. The move was an attempt to break the ice in normalizing Ankara-Yerevan relations, marred by decades of hostility due to Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani territory and Yerevan’s claims on World War I-era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish government has long submitted the protocols to the legislature. However, the Armenian Constitutional Court issued a ruling in January that Ankara labeled as containing pre-conditions. While saying the protocols signed in Zurich complied with the introductory part of the country’s Constitution, the ruling still allows Armenia to pursue international recognition of the alleged World War I-era genocide in Ottoman Turkey and upholds the country’s declaration of independence, which levels territorial claims against Turkey.*