/Today's Zaman/ -- In a ruling on whether the proposed protocols were constitutional, Armenia’s Constitutional Court approved the protocols signed in October. Yet in its ruling dated Jan. 12 the court referred to the country’s declaration of independence, which calls for recognition of the 1915 killings of Armenians under Ottoman rule as genocide. Turkey says the number is inflated and that many people died on both sides during the chaotic period.

The Turkish government has already sent the protocols to Parliament for ratification, a procedural requirement.

Reiterating that an Armenian court’s reference to the killings of Anatolian Armenians during World War I is against the spirit of the two protocols signed between Armenia and Turkey for repairing ties and reopening shared borders, a senior member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) argued, however, that there was no need to withdraw the protocols from Parliament.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday called the court’s ruling “unacceptable” and warned that the process of reconciliation “would be harmed if it is not corrected.”

Devlet Bahçeli, chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), meanwhile, said the government should “immediately withdraw” the protocols from Parliament. No date has been set for their ratification. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Murat Mercan, a senior member of the AK Party and the head of Parliament’s foreign affairs commission, said Parliament was in no rush to hold a debate on these protocols, thus there was no pressure on the foreign affairs commission to immediately deal with the protocols.

When asked whether the protocols would be withdrawn and in an apparent response to Bahçeli, Mercan said: “Practically, there is no difference between holding the protocols at the parliament’s commission and the government’s withdrawal of these protocols. We are extremely aware of our responsibilities.”

Earlier, another senior lawmaker with the AK Party, Bekir Bozdağ said: “No one should expect deliberations on the protocols to take place even at the commission level, let alone the floor, unless Armenia withdraws from Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia must honor its promise and fulfill its responsibility if it wants the normalization of ties between the two countries.”

In an apparent response to the Armenian court’s finding that Armenian agreements with Turkey shouldn’t concern any third party as per the conditions outlined in the two protocols, Erdoğan said on Wednesday, “Moreover, we don’t have the luxury of keeping Armenia-Azerbaijani relations out of this.”

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