Turkey rejected on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s calls for Ankara to normalize ties with Armenia, noting that a ruling by Armenia’s Constitutional Court is the main obstacle to a thaw, Hurriyet Daily News of Turkey writes.

Ankara rebutted a statement by the United States calling on Turkey to take steps to normalize its relations with Armenia, citing the Armenian Constitutional Court’s previous rulings on the two countries’ diplomatic protocols.

“Turkey’s position on the issue is clear,” a Turkish diplomat told the Hurriyet Daily News, adding that the Armenian court’s decision established that the Armenian-Turkish protocols conformed to the country’s constitution.

The Constitutional Court’s decision made a reference to the Armenian Genocide, and this drew ire from Ankara. This reference in the ruling was against the spirit of the normalization process with Yerevan, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said after the Armenian court’s ruling.

As Armenian News-NEWS.am informed earlier, during her visit Monday to Armenia, Clinton stated that the US is interested in the normalization of Armenian-Turkish ties, and noted that “the ball is in Turkey’s court.”