Turkey’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan Wednesday said his country’s parliament would not ratify US-backed fence-mending agreements signed with Armenia in October until Azeri “lands are liberated from Armenian occupation,” reported the Azeri Today.az website.

Kurdish protesters have clashed with police throughout Turkey as members of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the main Kurdish party, met to discuss their next move after being banned by the country’s constitutional court.

Turkey’s Constitutional Court late Friday delivered a landmark ruling, banning the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) for alleged links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Armenia on Thursday explicitly threatened to walk away from its landmark agreements with Turkey if Ankara continues to make their implementation conditional on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The tacit rebuke by foreign minister Eduard Nalbandian of the forceful comments made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his visit to Washington signals official Yerevan’s ambivalence to the political goings on around it and further reinforces the need for a new approach to diplomacy by Armenia.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared on the Charlie Rose show on Tuesday evening to discuss his meeting with President Obama in Washington DC earlier this week. Speaking on Prime-Time television, he directly linked the normalization of his country’s relations with Armenia to a pro-Azerbaijani settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday told the members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel is interested in direct talks with Syria over Turkish mediated negotiations, adding that his government would prefer Paris over Ankara in a situation in which a mediator is required, reported the Israeli Web site ynetnews.com.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, having secured at least temporarily, the silence of yet another Administration on the Armenian Genocide, has used his U.S. visit to further press Turkey’s advantage–dramatically escalating his genocide denial rhetoric, reinforcing Turkey’s “Protocols” preconditions for lifting its blockade of Armenia, and attempting to use Ankara’s new found leverage in the Nagorno Karabakh peace process to deliver a pro-Azerbaijani settlement of this conflict, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was “a main issue” in Monday’s talks between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Barack Obama, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted by the Azeri Today.az news portal as saying in an interview on Tuesday.

Iran rejected a Turkish role in its nuclear impasse with Western countries on Tuesday and said there would be no need for third-party mediation in the nuclear dispute.

The expansion of economic relations between Turkey, Armenia and Russia is very important, Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey, Vladimir Ivanovski, said on Monday.

What I have in mind has been with me for quite some time now. It seeps into conversations. It’s convenient. No harm is meant by anyone using it. In its form, it’s common to most countries/nations. Unfortunately, in our case, it is a mindset fraught with peril to our future. If it becomes pervasive, the next time something like the “protocols” of last summer comes along, our reaction might be far more muted, simply because they won’t seem to intrude on a fundamental issue— restoration of our territories to their rightful owners, US.

President Barack Obama hailed the Armenia-Turkey protocols and pledged US support for the process as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erodagan, on the eve of his meeting with the president, issued an ultimatum to the White House saying that normalization process could not move forward without an end to the Karabakh conflict.

The Armenian government has approved a draft resolution, authored by a deputy from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, calling on parliament to declare Azerbaijan the initiator of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.