Armenia annuls normalization protocols with Turkey

YEREVAN, Armenia – Armenia’s president has annulled long-dormant protocols aimed at normalizing ties with Turkey.

According to his spokesman, Vladimir Akopyan, President Serzh Sargsyan made the announcement Thursday at a meeting of the country’s security council.

The so-called Zurich Protocols signed by Yerevan and Ankara in 2009 were designed to open the Turkey-Armenia border and normalize diplomatic ties. The agreement required ratification by both countries’ parliaments.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in protest of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic-Armenian region of Azerbaijan. Nagorno-Karabakh now is under the control of forces that claim to be local ethnic Armenians but that Azerbaijan alleges include Armenian troops.

The countries are also embroiled in a dispute over the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians a century ago by Ottoman Turks.