YEREVAN (Yerevan Report Staff), February 10–Today President Serge Sarkisian, in a landmark speech made before the Chattem House British Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, pledged that he would immediately initiate the process of debate on the Turkish-Armenian protocols in the Armenian National Assembly.

“Immediately after today’s meeting here at the Chattem House, I am going to instruct my staff to submit the Armenia-Turkey protocols to the Armenian National Assembly for the ratification process to be initiated,” he said.

This decision contradicts an earlier statement from Yerevan that the protocols would only be considered by the National Assembly after having been ratified by the Turkish parliament.

President Sarkisian had indicated in several public statements that Armenia would walk away from the protocols if Turkey failed to ratify them “within a reasonable time frame.” Ankara was expected to ratify the protocols by April.

Ankara has recently expressed dissatisfaction several times with Armenia’s Constitutional Court decision regarding the protocols last month, as voiced by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. The Court ruled that the protocols should not interfere with Armenia’s desire to seek continued international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

Both Erdogan and Davutoglu have also insisted in the months after the signing of the protocols last October that the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border would be conditional upon a final peace agreement on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Azerbaijan’s favor.

Yesterday President Sarkisian sent a message to President Abdullah Gul of Turkey alluding to the necessity for moving forward with the normalization of relations between the two countries.

Photo credit: RFE/RL