DAVUTOGLU AZERBAIJAN AND TURKEY ARE STRATEGIC PARTNERS
Journal of Turkish Weekly
May 27 2009
Turkey and Azerbaijan are not only ordinary allies and neighbors,
they are also two strategic partners, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
said on Tuesday during an official visit to Baku.
Davutoglu arrived in the Azerbaijani capital late on Monday when
he flew from Damascus with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar
Mammadyarov. The two ministers had participated in the 36th session
of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference (OIC) held in the Syrian capital.
In Turkey, everybody has different political thoughts, however,
everybody attaches importance to relations with Azerbaijan, Davutoglu
said on Tuesday at a joint press conference following talks with
Mammadyarov, the Anatolia news agency reported. "Turkey and Azerbaijan
are not two ordinary friend, neighbor and brother countries, they
are at the same time two strategic partners.
One of the fundamental foreign policy priorities which is embraced by
everybody in Turkey — no matter what political thought those [people]
have — is the existing strategic partnership with Azerbaijan,"
DavutoÃ~Câ~@~^Ã.. .¸lu was quoted as saying by the Cihan news agency.
The minister, whose visit to Baku is his second official visit upon
being appointed to his current post earlier this month, underlined
that nobody should have doubts about Turkey’s sensitivities concerning
Azerbaijan.
Kiniklioglu we pass Turkish concerns to Armenians
Suat Kiniklioglu, member of Parliament and deputy chairman of external
affairs for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), has
said a workshop like this week’s Turkey-Armenia relations gives an
opportunity to Turkey to talk about concerns of the both sides as the
process of rapprochement with Armenia continues. "We want to share the
concerns in Turkey here. Even from the language used at the workshop
we see that we don’t know each other well. We talk about Turkey-Armenia
relations as well as Azerbaijan’s role in it in the context of regional
dynamics," said KÃ~Câ~@~^±nÃ~Câ~@~^ ±klÃ~Câ~@~^±oà ;~Câ~@~^Ÿlu
yesterday at Turkey-Armenia Relations Workshop organized by the
Foundation for Political Economic and Social Research (SETA).
Asked about the influence of the Karabakh issue in that regard,
KÃ~Câ~@~^±nÃ~C&# xE2;~@~^±klÃ~Câ~@~^ 1;oÃ~Câ~@~^Ÿlu said there is
parallel process to the Turkey-Armenia negotiations on the issue
taken by the Minsk group. "The process is parallel and they support
each other. But these are difficult topics. They would have been
solved in 16 or 17 if they were easy," he said. "Turkey has good
relations with both Azerbaijan and Georgia, and wants to add Armenia
into this. News of the normalization process with Armenia affects
Karabakh but the film is continuing and there will be developments,
hopefully positive." He also indicated that normalization of relations
with Armenia and resolution to the Karabakh conflict are both "mutually
reinforcing each other and interacting."
Attending the workshop Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the Caucasus
Institute based in Yerevan, said that they don’t expect that the
border between Armenia and Turkey will be open soon, closed by Turkey
in 1993 protesting the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh in
Azerbaijan. "We don’t expect that the border will be open in a short
period of time but once the border opens historical dimension of
Turkey-Armenia relations will not be so much important," he said.
Most of the participants at the workshop indicated that a closed
border with Armenia, "an anomaly of the Cold War years," should be
corrected, and this is the last legacy of the Soviet Union as NATO
member Turkey faces a closed border.
Bulent Aras from SETA said the Cold War has been continuing in the
Caucasus although it ended in the rest of the world. Yonca Poyraz
DoÃ~Câ~@~^Ÿan Ã~Câ~@~^°stanbul
"Our Azerbaijani siblings should know that Turkey will be by the side
of Azerbaijan in the future as well, as it has been in history,"
DavutoÃ~Câ~@~^Ã…&# xC2;¸lu said. "Our message intended for the actors
in the region, particularly intended for Armenia, is very open and
clear. The region should now be cleansed of occupations, stresses
and high tensions," he added, in an apparent reference to the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
The way of resolving frozen conflicts in the region passes through
setting bilateral, multilateral and all kinds of relations oriented
toward resolution in motion, DavutoÃ~Câ~@~^Ÿlu said, adding:
"Past incidents showed that frozen problems are like bombs ready to
explode in our hands and have the potential of increasing regional
tensions. Now, the time has come to get rid of these bombs which are
ready to explode."
Turkey, in every platform, has been voicing the need to resolve the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, DavutoÃ~Câ~@~^Ÿlu said, stressing
that Turkey supports the resolution of the conflict within the
framework of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, while also calling
on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
Minsk Group of countries, mediating talks between Yerevan and Baku
to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, to intensify their efforts.
Mammadyarov said they had reviewed bilateral relations between the
countries and that the relationship between the two neighbors has
been continuing well. He expressed confidence for the future relations
between Ankara and Baku.
Mammadyarov said his country is not satisfied with the trade turnover
level of $2 billion between Turkey and Azerbaijan: "We also discussed
cooperation in the fields of energy, economy and culture. Our countries
have signed around 150 documents in total, but we don’t have to stop
at what has been achieved."