Turkish President Abdullah Gul said initiative to normalize relations with Armenia is not frozen.

“I don’t think the Armenian initiative is dead. Both Turkey and the region need to save themselves from this dispute. We are working on the issue on a larger scale,” he told journalists on a plane returning from US.

He said that both civilian and official organizations had been assigned tasks in this regard, Today’s Zaman reports.

“The status quo is not helping Turkey, Armenia or Azerbaijan,” he added.

In October 2009 Armenia and Turkey signed protocols in Zurich to normalize diplomatic relations between the states. The documents had to be ratified in both countries’ parliaments.

However, in 2010 the Armenian president suspended the process due to Turkey’s non-constructive stance. Ankara set preconditions and linked the reconciliation process to resolution of the Karabakh conflict. Finally, Turkey decided to remove the protocols from parliament’s agenda.