Armenia returns to busy Turkish agenda
Sunday, June 19, 2011
FULYA Ã-ZERKAN
ANKARA ` Hürriyet Daily News
Turkey will come under pressure to normalize its relationship with
neighboring Armenia, another component of the zero-problems policy of
the re-elected government as hopes are running high over a progress at
the June 25 meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders mediated
by Russia.
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet next Saturday in Kazan
in Russia at a meeting brokered by Russian President Dimitri Medvedev,
one of the mediators of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia
over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azeri territory occupied by Yerevan. The
speculation reveals the two sides are close to a framework agreement,
which will ultimately lead to a breakthrough over the long-running
dispute.
Initial signals of optimism came from Azerbaijani Foreign Minister
Elmar Memmedyarov who said last week Armenia began to act more
flexibly. Turkey, a party sided with Azerbaijan and closed its border
with Yerevan in 1993 in solidarity with Baku, is not involved in the
Minsk process leading negotiations between the two foes but says it is
not very optimist.
`There has been stagnation over the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. We are
not very much hopeful but I hope progress will be made,’ a senior
Turkish Foreign Ministry diplomat told the Hürriyet Daily News.
Concentrated on a heated election campaign at home and surrounded by
unrest in its regional neighborhood in the Middle East and North
Africa, Turkey could not set aside extra time and energy for the
Caucasus and as long as the uprisings especially in neighboring Syria
continue, Ankara appears to fall short of channelizing into
normalizing Armenia ties. The Foreign Ministry diplomat already
confessed: `Right now regional issues are a priority for us.’
An Armenian expert also agrees.
Richard Kirakossian, director of the Regional Studies Center, said the
Karabakh conflict was not considered as an important factor during the
election campaign in Turkey, stressing the situation remained the same
as Turkey currently has more important regional issues related to
Syria, Libya as well as Israel.
However, genocide resolutions brought to the US Congress every year
are hanging like a sword of Damocles over Turkey. Last week,
pro-Armenian lawmakers introduced a fresh congressional resolution
calling on the United States to recognize World War I-era deaths of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as `genocide.’
`Undoubtedly, there will be pressure from the United States to
normalize relations with Armenia in the post-election era,’ opposition
deputy Faruk LoÄ?oÄ?lu told the Daily News.
His Republican People’s Party, or CHP, opposed the protocols and
reconciliation with Armenia unless a settlement was reached to the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
`It is necessary to reconsider the protocols. If a further step is
going to be taken in relations with Armenia, the calibrations of the
process should be set well,’ said LoÄ?oÄ?lu, Turkey’s former ambassador
to Azerbaijan and the US. `The CHP is in favor of Turkish-Armenian
reconciliation but any normalization should observe Turkey’s
interests.’
Turkey wants to create a belt of security and stability in the
Caucasus and believes Armenia is no exception to this policy. Turkish
diplomatic sources said the process stalled because of the two
countries’ failure to manage the normalization, but they hoped efforts
would continue. In the post-election era, the Turkish government is
expected to introduce a set of confidence-building measures as a sign
of its commitment to the normalization process.
Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian, in a recent interview with
the BBC, said his country was ready to establish diplomatic
relationship with Turkey without any preconditions and slammed the
closure of border in the 21st century as `absurdity.’
¢ Anna Israelyan, senior reporter for Armenian Daily Aravot,
contributed to this report.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=syria-unrest-pushes-armenia-ties-to-peripheries-2011-06-19