TURKEY SEES OPPORTUNITY TO RESOLVE KARABAKH DISPUTE
Reuters AlertNet
Sept 11 2008
UK
BAKU, Sept 11 (Reuters) – Turkish President Abdullah Gul said late
on Wednesday he saw "a new opportunity" to resolve the fate of
Azerbaijan’s Armenian-backed breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Gul spoke after meeting Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, four days
after becoming the first Turkish leader to visit Armenia and raised
hopes of a thaw in relations in the energy-vital region. "We think
there is a new opportunity for the resolution of the Karabakh issue,"
Gul said in comments broadcast by Azeri state television.
An Armenian-populated region, Karabakh fought a war in the early 1990s
to break away from Azerbaijan. Its separatist authorities claim full
independence, but the region is not recognised internationally.
Gul said last month’s war in Georgia, with Russia sending in tanks
and troops to repel an assault by Tbilisi to retake breakaway South
Ossetia, had served warning against letting ‘frozen conflicts’ fester.
"After the events in Georgia, we as statesmen, as leaders must analyse
the situation in the right way, and express firm political will,"
Gul said. "It is necessary to better assess the new opportunity,
not to allow frozen conflicts to continue but to solve them."
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in protest at Yerevan’s backing
for the Karabakh separatists, deepening a century-old rift over the
question of whether ethnic Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks during
World War One were victims of systematic genocide.
A solution to the Karabakh dispute is seen as crucial to any move to
establish diplomatic ties between Turkey and Armenia.
A breakthrough could have huge significance for Turkey’s role as a
regional power, for energy flows from the Caspian Sea and for Western
influence in the South Caucasus region.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said on Wednesday he was planning
a meeting with his Armenian and Azeri counterparts this month at the
United Nations.
Azeri leader Aliyev said he was "looking to the future with increasing
hope."
"I’d like to believe that thanks to the efforts of Turkey, Azerbaijan
and Armenia, as well as other countries, we will secure peace in the
region," he said. (Reporting by Lada Yevgrashina; writing by Matt
Robinson; editing by Matthew Jones)