London/Washington  - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said late Saturday that she told Turkish and Armenian envoys that the agreements they signed Saturday - after hours of last-moment delays - were too important to let fail.

She was seen shuttling between the two sides in Zurich before they signed two protocols to pave the way for a new era of diplomatic ties between Armenia and Turkey. Their relations were cut off in 1993 and have long been under the shadow of what Armenia alleges was genocide of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Turks during World War I, a charge Ankara denies.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian inked the documents and exchanged firm handshakes, only after a delay of several hours because of wrangling over the wording, according to diplomats at the talks in Zurich.

"There were several times when I said to all of the parties involved that this is too important, that this has to be seen through," Clinton told reporters during her flight from Switzerland to London, where she planned to meet with British officials.

"'You've come too far, all of the work that has gone into the protocols, you know, should not be walked away from,'" she recalled saying. "'And will there be continuing difficulties in working this out? Of course, there will be. But you have agreed on these protocols. So let's sign those, and then we will go on to the next stage.'"

Clinton said that she called US President Barack Obama "several times" during the process on Saturday.

The delay was the result of "concerns on both sides," she said.

Clinton and Philip Gordon, who heads the State Department's Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, were in Zurich officially to witness Saturday's document signing but "weren't surprised at all" to become enmeshed in salvaging the protocols, she said.

"We know that this is always fraught with potential complexities," Clinton said.

With the ink drying on the protocols, "Now we move on, to the next phase of this," she said. (dpa)