DIPLOMACY IN CAUCASUS TO SPEED UP, FM
Hurriyet
Nov 13 2008
Turkey
ANKARA – Foreign Minister Ali Babacan says the upcoming days will see
intense diplomatic contacts in the Caucasus and announces his Armenian
counterpart will soon visit Turkey. The visit will be a follow-up to
the landmark meeting of the two countries’ presidents
Armenia’s foreign minister, Edward Nalbandian, is expected to visit
Turkey some time soon, his Turkish counterpart, Ali Babacan, said
yesterday.
The visit will be a follow-up to the landmark meeting of the two
countries’ presidents in September.
He said the upcoming days would see intense diplomatic contacts in
the Caucasus, adding that he would visit Azerbaijan but noted that
the exact time of the visits was not certain.
Turkey presented a proposal to establish a Caucasus platform in the
wake of the Georgia-Russia war last summer. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan
are backing the Turkish initiative for stability in the region. The
platform will give Yerevan and Baku an opportunity to iron out their
differences over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Babacan voiced support for Russia’s role in improving ties between
Armenia and Azerbaijan. "The Russian role is important. Russia
will make important contributions to the normalization of
Azerbaijani-Armenian relations," he told a joint press conference
with his visiting Algerian counterpart.
Hosted by Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev, the presidents of Azerbaijan
and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Serge Sarkisian met near Moscow recently
and signed a joint declaration asserting their desire for a political
settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Babacan also commented on a bilateral meeting between Sarkisian and
Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who paid a landmark visit to Yerevan
in September to watch a football match between the Turkish-Armenian
national teams. He said the Armenian president did not need to wait
for another football occasion to visit Turkey and added he expected
the meeting between Sarkisian and Gul would take place in a short
period of time.
Asked about a question on a trilateral summit between the foreign
ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, Babacan said the three-way
talks occurred on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings
in New York and that all the sides were in agreement to press ahead
with three-way talks.