"Turkey had a condition for the entry into force of Zurich protocols. Armenia must liberate occupied territories of Azerbaijan", Foreign Affairs Minister of Turkey Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference following the meeting with his counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov, APA reports.
Cavusoglu said that Armenia failed the test of sincerity and therefore, the withdrawal of protocols from the parliament is of no importance.
"Azerbaijan and Turkey want to make the South Caucasus to a region of peace and security. However, Armenia's intention is different. The South Caucasus will become a region of peace and security if Armenia understands its mistake, withdraws its forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and respectfully approach Azerbaijan's territorial integrity", he said.
On Feb 16 President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan sent a letter to the Chairman of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia Galust Sahakyan informing him about his decision on withdrawing the Armenia-Turkey protocols from the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, press-service of the president reported.
The letter said, in particular, that when staring the process for normalizing of relations with Turkey without pre-conditions, the Armenian party was imagining all possible options of further development of events. "Six years have passed since the moment of signing the protocols. For this period of time Armenia has always been consistent in fulfillment of these documents. However, one should say about the absolute absence of the political will of the Turkish authorities which distorted the letter and the spirit of the protocols and put forward pre- conditions. Moreover, on the threshold of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide the policy of denial and rewriting of history is again being conducted in Turkey", - the letter says.
For this reason, Sargsyan adopted a decision to withdraw the Armenian-Turkish protocols from the parliament. The protocols were signed on 10 October 2009 in Zurich.