“Haykakan Zhamanak” says that despite all the assurances made by Armenian officials, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict holds the key to normalizing Armenia’s relations with Turkey. The opposition paper claims that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke of time frames for the signing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord during his visit to Washington. This means, it says, the Turkish-Armenian agreements are unlikely to take effect soon.
“Hayots Ashkhar” interprets President Serzh Sarkisian’s reaction to Erdogan’s statements as Armenia’s “last verbal warning” to Turkey. “If Turkey fails to reconsider its preconditional approaches and carries on with the same Baku-style rhetoric, then it will wreck the process of normalizing relations with Armenia, bearing full responsibility for that; Armenia will put forward its very founded preconditions relating to Turkey, rather than a third country,” writes the paper. It says Yerevan could also annul the Turkish-Armenian agreements and speed up international recognition of the Armenian genocide.
“Azg” reports on the resignation of Turkey’s Ambassador to the United States Nabi Sensoy, describing it as “the main result” of Erdogan’s visit to Washington. The paper says Sensoy resigned after reportedly failing to convey to the American side Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s request to attend Erdogan’s talks with President Barack Obama.
Lragir.am reports that deputies from the governing Republican (HHK) and Prosperous Armenia (BHK) parties clashed in parliament on Thursday. The online journal attributes the worsening relations between the two parties to President Serzh Sarkisian’s perceived habit of playing with high stakes and seeking to gain things at once. It argues that Sarkisian made sure that HHK won the absolute majority of parliament seats in 2007 and avoided a run-off with Levon Ter-Petrosian during the February 2008 presidential election. It says the BHK is not happy with that.
(Aghasi Yenokian)