Yesterday’s Decision Place Armenia-Turkey Protocols At Risk: Davutoglu

Instead of parliaments judging history, let’s talk face to face and open the archives, said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at a news conference organized on the issue of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee approving House Resolution 252 on the Armenian Genocide.

“I want to make the following call to Armenians and to Armenia, instead of judging history through parliament, let’s talk face to face, let’s open up our archives,” said Davutoglu, adding that third party intervention will harm the process of normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations.

“Each decision is going to hinder the historical reconciliation. Third party intervention is going to harm the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. It’s necessary that everyone be reasonable in the issue of normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations,” said the Turkish foreign minister, adding that he doesn’t agree with all those who insist that Turkey is delaying the Protocols ratification process.

“The view that Turkey is delaying the Protocols process is not right. We sent the Protocols to parliament in 10 days, while Armenia, in four months. As for when parliament will ratify the Protocols, that’s its jurisdiction,” said Davutoglu.

“Yesterday’s decision threatens the failure of the Protocols. Because of that decision, we can’t move forward. We have never made and will never make a decision under pressure… We don’t want a crisis in Turkish-American relations every spring. We expect that a statement that will deepen the crisis on April 24 won’t be made. We think that Obama will work for the long-term,” said the Turkish foreign minister, stressing that Ankara says “yes” to Armenian-Turkish reconciliation.