While flying over Turkey on his three-day working trip to the United Kingdom, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan sent a message to his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul in which he urged the leadership in Ankara “to manifest determination to make the next major step and leave to the coming generations a stable and secure region.”

Sargsyan’s message to Gul came amid a stalling rapprochement process that the two leaders started about a year and a half ago by attending together a football match in the Armenian capital. That effort resulted in diplomatic protocols signed by the two countries’ foreign ministers in October last year.

But the ratification of the protocols in the parliaments of the two countries has been stalling since then, with Turkey overtly linking normalization with Yerevan and opening of the border conditional on progress in the Karabakh settlement acceptable to its regional ally Azerbaijan. Lately, Turkey has also been increasingly worried over Armenia’s insistence that its normalization with Turkey does not constitute a compromise on a broader international recognition of the Genocide committed against Armenians in Ottoman Turkey at the beginning of last century. Turkey has also denounced the move in US Congress to consider a formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide as an 'element of pressure' on Ankara in the Armenian-Turkish process. (The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee last week scheduled for March 4 a panel vote on House Resolution 252 on the Armenian Genocide).

“Our initiative, aimed at the normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations, holds attention of the international community. This is a historic moment, indeed, and it is recognized not only by us, but also by the global community. Efforts of the countries engaged in the region, aimed at the improvement of bilateral relations, are indispensable. I am confident that it wouldn’t be possible to move forward without their support. At the same time, I believe no matter how interested friendly states might be in a positive resolution of the impasse, there are certain things that can be done only by our two nations,” said President Sargsyan in a message, the text of which was disseminated by his press office Tuesday afternoon.

”I hope you will agree that the Armenian and Turkish peoples assign the main task of getting rid of the stereotypes regarding each other and establishment of the atmosphere of mutual trust to their respective governments. We can achieve results only if there are trust, resolve, and unfaltering stance. A situation when words are not supported by deeds gives rise to mistrust and skepticism, providing ample opportunities to counteract for those, who oppose the process. We should be mindful of the fact that in this particular case, the time is working not for but against the process,” continued Sargsyan. “If until now we have been able to bring our bilateral relations up to a level which made the prospects of building normal relations between our two countries more tangible and discernible, now the time has come to manifest determination to make the next major step and leave to the coming generations a stable and secure region.”


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