World Peace News: Top Stories

Armenia and Turkey sign peace deal
by Zerin Elci and Jeff Mason

Reuters Translate This Article
10 October 2009

ZURICH (Reuters) - Turkey and Armenia signed a landmark peace accord on Saturday to restore ties and open their joint border after a century of hostility....

But in an indication of the many pitfalls that lie ahead of its implementation, the ceremony was delayed for more than three hours after it hit a snag over last-minute disagreements with statements, forcing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to engage in intense discussions with the two sides.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian signed the Swiss-mediated deal in Zurich at a ceremony attended by Clinton, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

The Turkish and Armenian parliaments must now approve the deal in the face of opposition from nationalists on both sides....

Before the agreement was signed at the University of Zurich, Clinton returned to her hotel to help smooth over disagreements with Nalbandian over statements to be read at the ceremony. She then held a long telephone call with Davutoglu before meeting Nalbandian.

It was not immediately clear what was the cause of the disagreements....

Earlier, a U.S. official said a new version of the Turkish statement had been brought to the hotel, breaking the impasse.

At the end, neither Davutolgu nor Nalbadian made public statements.

The delay left Solana, Lavrov and Kouchner waiting for more than two hours while the Americans met the Armenians at a nearby hotel.

Flanked by other dignitaries, Davutoglu and Nalbadian sat at a table to sign the deal. Once they had signed several pages, they stood up and shook hands to applause and exchanged hugs and handshakes with the other ministers....

A decades-old dispute between Turkey's ally Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh had hung over the deal after talks between Azeri and Armenian leaders over the region ended without result on Friday.

An accord would boost U.S. ally Turkey's diplomatic clout in the volatile South Caucasus, a transit corridor for oil and gas to the West....

The deal sets a timetable for restoring diplomatic ties and opening their border.

It must then be approved by their parliaments in the face of nationalist opposition and the powerful Armenian diaspora.

(Additional reporting by Katie Reid in Zurich, Hasmik Mkrtchyan in Yerevan and Margarita Antidze in Tbilisi; Writing by Ibon Villelabeitia; Editing by Richard Williams)

Copyright 2009 Reuters. Reprinted with permission from Reuters. Reuters content is the intellectual property of Reuters or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters Sphere Logo are registered trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world. For additional information about Reuters content and services, please visit Reuters website at www.reuters.com. License # REU-5918-MES

Every day Global Good News documents the rise of a better quality of life dawning in the world from good news reported by the press; and highlights the need for introducing Natural Law based-Total Knowledge based-programmes to bring the support of Nature to every individual, raise the quality of life of every society, and create a lasting state of world peace.

Translation software is not perfect; however if you would like to try it, you can translate this page using:

(Google)
(Altavista babelfish)

Send Good News to Global Good News.

Your comments.