EU Envoy Hopes Turkey-Armenia Protocols Approved Soon
EU special envoy Peter Semneby
November 02, 2009
YEREVAN -- The European Union's special representative to the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby, said he hopes the rapprochement protocols signed by Armenia and Turkey will be ratified soon, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.
Semneby told RFE/RL in Yerevan on October 30 that the parliamentary ratification of the two protocols, which were signed in Zurich on October 10, is an important "domestic process" in both countries.
He added that Turkey and Armenia are important partners for the EU.
Semneby said if Armenia and Turkey can move to a stage of implementation of their agreement within the next few months, "this will have a very important constructive element to our relations with both countries."
He stressed that there is no formal link between the process of Turkish-Armenian normalization and the separate peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The two protocols would reopen the border between the two countries and establish diplomatic ties between the two estranged nations.