Category: Southern Caucasus

BAKU AND YEREVAN DOWNBEAT ON A POSSIBLE SOLUTION

Shahin Abbasov and Gayane Abrahamyan 5/11/09

While international mediators give an upbeat assessment to the May 8 tÃªte-Ã -tÃªte between Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, within Azerbaijan and Armenia there is a scarcity of optimism.

Novruz Mammadov, head of the Azerbaijani presidential administration’s Foreign Policy Department, put it bluntly. “The [Minsk Group] co-chairs’ optimism does not correspond with reality,” Mammadov told ATV television on May 9. “The presidents’ meeting was unsuccessful.”

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov had earlier asserted that the Armenians “again did not show a constructive approach.” He did not elaborate.

Yerevan cast the two leaders’ Prague meeting in somewhat of a more positive light. The talks with President Aliyev were “useful,” the Armenian presidential press service said in an official statement, since they “allowed the parties to further define approaches over the basic principles for the NK [Nagorno-Karabakh] conflict resolution, as well as to bring positions of the parties over some issues closer together.”

In a May 8 interview with RFE/RL’s Azeri-language service, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza, the Minsk Group’s American co-chair, asserted that Aliyev and Sargsyan now agree on the major concepts for how to resolve the Karabakh conflict. Details will be sorted out “during the upcoming two weeks,” Bryza said. “After that the whole concept [of resolution] should be quickly agreed. It is realistic by autumn of this year.”

In a separate interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station on May 11, Bryza had this to say (according to an unofficial translation): “In the end, the [occupied Azerbaijani] territories will be returned, and there will be, in addition, a return of Azerbaijani displaced persons to these territories.”

“At present, I can’t predict what will be [the case] with Karabakh itself,” Bryza continued. “We know that it will have some kind of new status. How that status is defined … well, negotiations are still going on about that.”

Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tigran Balaian, responding to Bryza’s Ekho Moskvy comments, said that “during the May 8 meeting in Prague, the issue of taking Armenian troops out of the disputed [occupied] territories was not discussed at all.”

In an interview with Russia’s Ekho Moskvy radio station, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner stated that “each side follows its own line and responds to the scenarios in a very different manner.” He added, however, that “there is no need to be disappointed.”

One Azerbaijani analyst pinpoints a strategic reason for the mediators’ persistent optimism. “Turkey and the United States are hurrying to make progress on a Karabakh solution because they want to open the Armenian-Turkish border this year,” opined Elhan Shahinoglu, head of the Baku-based independent think-tank Atlas. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. “It is clear now that Ankara will not be able to open the border by separating this issue from the Nagorno-Karabkah talks. So progress is urgently needed.”

The Prague talks took place against a background of unprecedented diplomatic activity. During the last month and a half, Turkey and Armenia agreed on a “road map” to reconciliation, presidents Aliyev and Sargsyan both paid visits to Moscow and US President Barack Obama visited Turkey, a key Azerbaijani ally.

The pronouncements about progress worry one former Armenian foreign minister. “There has always been a limit to the compromise the Armenian side could afford, so the sides could not reach agreements when the Azerbaijani position did not fit within the framework acceptable to the Armenian side,” Vartan Oskanian, who served as foreign minister from 1998 to 2008, told the Armenian news site Yot Or in a May 8 interview. “What is it now that makes it possible to talk about an agreement? Is it because Azerbaijan has lowered the benchmark for its demands, or is it Armenia?”

In Azerbaijan, ANS-TV quoted an unnamed government source as saying that Armenia had gotten tougher at the talks. Sargsyan, the source claimed, demanded that a date be set for a vote within Karabakh about the territory’s status in exchange for an Armenian withdrawal from five Azerbaijani regions bordering the territory. No mention of such a proposal has been made in Armenia.

Within Karabakh itself worries are growing that the territory’s fate will be decided without its de facto government having a say in the matter. “No one can decide [Karabakhis’] fate sitting there, in Yerevan,” asserted the region’s former de facto defense minister, Samvel Babaian, at a May 9 news conference. “The people in Karabakh will not obey any decision when they feel danger. I am confident of it.”

On May 9, President Sargsyan visited Karabakh, where he was born, and spoke with the region’s leader, Bako Sahakian. In remarks to reporters, Sahakian expressed confidence that Armenia is trying to have Karabakh included in the negotiations. Karabakh was represented in the talks until 1998. “[E]verybody realizes there can’t be any final decision without the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’s participation,” Panorama.am reported Sahakian as saying.

But if Karabakh’s future status becomes the sticking point, the chances for a breakthrough would appear even slimmer, added one Baku observer. “Azerbaijan is not ready for any compromise on this issue,” independent analyst Rasim Agayev told ANS TV on May 8.

One Azerbaijani analyst argues that any future progress will depend on the results of revived dialogue between Russia and the United States. President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedyev are scheduled to meet in July in Moscow. “If Moscow and Washington will agree on the wide spectrum of problems in US-Russian relations, I would expect a breakthrough at the Karabakh talks as early as the autumn,” commented Rauf Mirkadirov, political columnist for Baku’s Russian-language Zerkalo (Mirror) daily.

Still, getting a clear grasp on how the Prague meeting will affect further talks poses a challenge, noted one Armenian analyst. “One needs to be at least a fortune-teller to judge [the future] from Bryza’s words,” said independent political expert Suren Aivazian.

Editor’s Note: Shahin Abbasov is a freelance correspondent based in Baku. He is also a board member of the Open Society Institute-Azerbaijan. Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.

May 11, 2009
Armenia and Turkey: “A Door Opens, Slowly”

Hugh Pope in Transitions Online

28 April 2009

Transitions Online

These two old enemies should not get sidetracked as they look for a way to come to terms.

After nearly a century of conflict and animosity, Turkey and Armenia are now close to a breakthrough. An agreement on the table would establish diplomatic relations, open the border, and set up a bilateral commission that will include an element to address the traumatic history of the two peoples. This is a historic opportunity for normalization that the leaders of both countries should seize.

The stalemated Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh may yet impede progress, a situation that both sides should do their best to avoid. Plans to establish diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia have already been on hold since 1993, when ethnic Armenian forces captured most of the Armenian-majority enclave of Azerbaijan and advanced into a large surrounding area of Azerbaijan. To show solidarity with its ethnic and linguistic cousins in Baku, Ankara closed a railway line that was then the only transport link between Turkey and Armenia. Ever since, Ankara’s condition for improving bilateral relations has been based on Armenian troop withdrawals from occupied territory in Azerbaijan.

Baku is nervous this condition may be lifted and says it may respond by restricting Turkey’s participation in the expansion of Azerbaijani energy exports and selling natural gas to Russia instead. But Azerbaijan ought to reconsider its position: bilateral détente between Turkey and Armenia could ease Yerevan’s fears of encirclement and help Baku recover its lost territory better than this current stalemate, from which nobody has gained anything for the past 16 years.

On its side, Armenia should be aware that, even if Turkey compromises by delinking the opening of the border from Nagorno-Karabakh withdrawals, any further normalization will be unsustainable if there is no progress in its disputes with Azerbaijan. Armenia and Azerbaijan should in any case adopt the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Minsk Group’s basic principles for settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which include the eventual withdrawal of Armenian forces from territories ringing Nagorno-Karabakh, the return of residents displaced during the fighting, and a referendum to determine the enclave’s status.

A TORTURED HISTORY

A positive trend in Turkey-Armenia relations, including a firm and public Armenian acceptance of Turkey’s territorial integrity, will also do much to encourage Turkey to be more open in its approach to the politicized debate over whether to call destruction of much of the Ottoman Armenian population in 1915 a genocide, as more than 20 countries have already done.

Decades of Turkish denial of Ottoman large-scale massacres and forced displacement of Armenians has changed in the past decade thanks to the efforts of Turkey’s intellectual elite. Continuing to prepare public opinion for truth and reconciliation is important. Universities in Turkey and Armenia should be encouraged to pursue broader research, preferably with third-party scholars, to agree on a common set of facts and archival resources. Both sides again should modernize history books and remove all prejudice from them.

This will help build on the progressively intense official dialogue, vigorous activity in civil society, and evolution in public opinion that have already transformed the Turkey-Armenia relationship. Turks’ and Armenians’ once uncompromising, bipolar views of history are significantly converging, showing that the deep traumas can be healed. This advance in bilateral relations demonstrates that a desire for reconciliation can overcome old enmities and closed borders. New trends are also apparent among the Armenian diaspora, where hardliners dominate the narrative, and the process has the support of outside powers such as the United States, the European Union, and Russia.

For Turkey, there are many other benefits to opening the Armenian border. Eastern Turkish towns are looking forward to trading directly with Armenian counterparts, and to welcoming a new generation of Armenian tourists to the many Armenian heritage sites in eastern Turkey. Turkey’s image in Europe will improve and give it better arguments when it comes to the painful issue of genocide recognition resolutions in the United States and elsewhere. For Armenia, the benefits are considerable as well. Its railroads and electricity networks will have profitable new partners, trade routes will become less vulnerable, and, strategically, Yerevan will have to worry less about a threat from Turkey.

Despite its risks and possible pitfalls, the prospects for normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations are better than they have been for decades. Most importantly, both sides see the advantages of this process. If borders are opened and trade restarts, all will gain – chiefly Armenia and Turkey but potentially Azerbaijan as well – in terms of economic strength and national security. For healthy progress on overcoming historic divisions, the focus needs to be on joint work in the present and the future.

Hugh Pope is the Turkey/Cyprus project director of the International Crisis Group.

Transitions Online

Source: www.crisisgroup.org

[Hugh Pope is author of “Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey,” and also “Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World” -HD]

May 11, 2009
“We Are All Armenians”

Hugh Pope in The Wall Street Journal

27 April 2009

The Wall Street Journal

Obama was right not to jeopardize reconciliation between Ankara and Yerevan.

President Barack Obama trod a fine moral line this month between his past campaign promises to use the word genocide to describe the World War I massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and his present opportunity to nurture normalization between Armenia and Turkey. But his compromise was no capitulation to the realpolitik of U.S.-Turkish strategic interests, as some Armenians may suspect and some Turks may hope. It is actually a challenge to both parties to move beyond the stalemates of history.

The opportunity could hardly be better. After a decade of civil society outreach and growing official engagement, Armenia and Turkey jointly announced on Wednesday a Swiss-mediated deal to establish diplomatic relations and open borders. The two sides will also set up a bilateral commission to study what Armenians commemorate each April 24 as the beginning of a genocide against their people by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, and what Turkey says were forced relocations, uprisings and massacres during the chaos of World War I.

Before implementing the deal, however, Turkey is now seeking an Armenian commitment to withdraw from territory in Azerbaijan that ethnic Armenian forces occupied in the 1992-94 Nagorno-Karabakh war. But Ankara would be ill-advised to hold up rapprochement with Yerevan because of protests from its ally, Azerbaijan. In fact, normalizing relations with Armenia is the best way for Turkey to help its ethnic and linguistic Azerbaijani cousins. It would make Armenia feel more secure, making it perhaps also more open to a compromise over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The border closure these past 16 years has done nothing to force a settlement over the contested region. The fragility of the 1994 cease-fire truce suggests that a new way forward is imperative. Armenian normalization with Turkey will not be sustainable in the long run, though, unless Yerevan and Baku agree to the ongoing international Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, leading to Armenian troop withdrawals.

It is this complex situation that explains Mr. Obama’s diplomatic language. In this year’s April 24 memorial statement, the U.S. president chose not to use the word “genocide” to describe the events of 1915. The Turks resent this term partly because they want their view of the events to be taken into account and partly because the term genocide has potential legal implications involving possible demands for reparations and compensation. The Swiss-brokered deal will include an Armenian recognition of Turkey’s borders, banishing the shadow of long-lingering territorial claims.

Instead, President Obama chose the Armenian term for the atrocities, “Mets Yeghern,” meaning “Great Man-Made Catastrophe.” The U.S. Congress, where a resolution to recognize the Armenian genocide was introduced on March 17, may want to follow the president’s lead and avoid confrontation in order to give the current Turkey-Armenia normalization process a chance.

Armenians have a point when they argue that the past decade of international resolutions and statements recognizing the Armenian genocide have forced Turkey to end its blanket denial of Ottoman wrongdoing. But such outside pressures have got no closer to making Turkey accept the term genocide itself, especially when the bills before Congress and other parliaments are clearly the result of domestic political calculations rather than high-minded deliberation.

On the Armenian question, many Turks, including government officials now publicly express regret over the loss of Armenian life. After more than eight decades of silence, when any open discussion of what happened in 1915 was considered taboo, the Turkish public is digesting an onrush of new facts and opinions about those past events.

The past decade has seen much convergence between Turks and Armenians in understanding the history of 1915 as academic exchanges have grown and information become widely available. A 2005 conference on the Armenian issue by the front ranks of the Turkish intelligentsia demonstrated that the country’s academic and cultural elite wants to do away with the old nationalist defensiveness. In the east of Turkey, efforts have begun to preserve the surviving Armenian heritage. Far from worsening Turkish-Armenian relations, the murder of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in 2007 by a shadowy nationalist gang triggered a march of 100,000 people in Istanbul carrying signs saying “We Are All Armenians.”

Opinion polls show two-thirds of Turks supported President Abdullah Gül’s decision in September to accept his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian’s invitation for a World Cup qualifier soccer match and to become the first Turkish head of state to visit Armenia. Then in December, 200 leading Turkish intellectuals began a signature campaign to apologize for what they called the “Great Catastrophe” of the Armenians. Nearly 30,000 people have signed it so far.

Overall, Turkey’s efforts with Armenia also fit into decade-long efforts to improve ties with other neighboring countries. Ankara has successfully normalized its once tense relations with Syria, Greece and Iraqi Kurdistan. Ankara also tried its best to bring about a reconciliation between Turkish and Greek Cypriots.

New trends are visible in Armenia too. As pride and security in the new Armenian statehood grows, genocide recognition no longer overrides all other national interests. Issues such as the need for more economic opportunities, a broader-based regional strategy and an open Turkish border that can be a direct gateway to the West are taking center stage. Armenians increasingly spend their vacation in Turkish resorts.

Change is also evident in the diaspora, which outnumbers the population in Armenia and has a strong influence on Yerevan. The Armenian community in France led an international campaign, joined by Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan and more than 100 public intellectuals, to say “Thank You” for the Turkish apology efforts. Armenian-French intellectuals are increasingly seeking to reconnect with their heritage by cultivating their links to Turkey and Turks and visiting Istanbul.

As President Obama has recognized, it is this trend of convergence that offers the best chance in decades to open the borders between these two states, moving beyond nearly a century in which Turks and Armenians have been held hostage to frozen conflicts, nationalist confrontation and the ghosts of the past.

Hugh Pope, author of “Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey,” is the Istanbul representative of International Crisis Group.

The Wall Street Journal

Source: www.crisisgroup.org

[Hugh Pope is also author of “Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World” -HD]

May 11, 2009
Azeri diaspora to counter Armenian-American influence

AZERBAIJAN: DIASPORA ORGANIZATION TRIES TO COUNTER ARMENIAN-AMERICAN INFLUENCE IN WASHINGTON
Jessica Powley Hayden 5/08/09

A new front has opened in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict and it is centered in Washington, DC. Frustrated by the effectiveness of Armenian-American advocacy groups to shape debates in the United States, Baku is now looking to its diaspora for a little public-relations support.

Last year, a group of Azeri-Americans founded the US-Azeri Network (USAN), which advertises itself as a grassroots advocacy organization. The new, Washington, DC-based group hopes to connect Azeri-American voters to promote a pro-Azerbaijan agenda in the United States.

That agenda is a point-by-point refutation of policies sought by the Armenian-American advocacy groups: increased aid to Azerbaijan; decreased aid to Armenia; the elimination of humanitarian aid to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh; the immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces from Karabakh; and recognition of massacres perpetrated against Azerbaijanis by ethnic Armenians in 1918, marked in Azerbaijan as the “Day of the Azerbaijani Genocide.”

USAN casts itself in the role of the underdog. “[Azeri-Americans] see that political activism can go a long way… [W]e can achieve a lot and ’compete’ with the big boys like the Armenian diaspora and its lobby,” commented USAN Executive Director Adil Baguirov.

It will be an uphill challenge. If garnering aid from the United States were a competition, Armenia would clearly be winning. From 1992 to 2007, Armenia received almost $2 billion worth of assistance from the United States ($1,745,930), while Azerbaijan came away with about a billion less: $743,400,000.

In addition to lobbying for limits on aid to Azerbaijan, Armenia has invested substantial resources into lobbying US legislators and the president to recognize as genocide the Ottoman Turks’ slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in 1915.

Armenian advocacy and lobby groups also have a long history of promoting Armenian policies among American lawmakers. Armenian political action committees (PACs) contributed nearly $200,000 to various races across the US in the 2008 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission documents.

Rough estimates put the size of the Armenian-American population at nearly 1 million.

Azeri-Americans are less organized, young, far fewer in estimated number (some 400,000, according to USAN), and have not had as much success in getting their agenda before US policymakers.

In meetings on Capitol Hill last summer, Azerbaijani parliamentarians were told: “Look, Armenians are my constituents and I am accountable to them,” recounted Petro Morgos who runs the parliamentary program at DAI (Development Alternatives, Inc.), an international civil-society development organization, and attended the meetings.

USAN believes that American politicians are not getting the whole story. In addressing the American public, USAN’s Baguirov states that his organization covers what it terms “crimes against humanity and genocidal acts perpetrated by Armenians against Azerbaijani, Turkish, Kurdish, Jewish, and other civilians in the Caucasus and East Anatolia since the 19th century, culminating more recently with the Khojaly Massacre in 1992.”

Hundreds of Azerbaijani civilians were killed – according to Baku, by Armenian forces – trying to escape from the village of Khojaly in Karabakh during the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the territory. The Armenian government blames Azerbaijani forces for their deaths.

Azerbaijan’s emphasis on informing foreigners about alleged acts of Armenian aggression can also be seen in Baku. In April, Fazil Mustafa, a member of the Milli Majlis, proposed creating a genocide museum in Baku, emphasizing its value in educating foreign guests. A museum already exists in Yerevan that chronicles the events of 1915.

The recent push to energize Azeri-Americans to promote Azerbaijan’s interests appears to be the result of frustration within Azerbaijan itself. In 2006, President Ilham Aliyev accused Armenian-American groups in the United States for distorting Azerbaijani history. Aliyev, at the time, suggested that Azerbaijan would cultivate its own diaspora.

Since Aliyev’s speech, an Azerbaijani consulate has been opened in Los Angeles. Consul General Elin Suleymanov explained that Los Angeles was chosen in part because of the large Armenian Diaspora located in California. “We wanted Azerbaijan’s voice to be heard on the West Coast and for public opinion not to be shaped by the Armenian side alone,” he told EurasiaNet.

Another diaspora-based organization, the Azerbaijan-American Council, was opened in California in 2006 with the “primary purpose of facilitating active integration of Azerbaijani-Americans into U.S. public life and strengthening Azerbaijani-American identity.”

Suleymanov, however, cautions that focusing too heavily on “narrow ethnicity-based ideology” is counterproductive to achieving peace in the region. “Unfortunately, some in the Armenian community still focus on the past and see our region in simplified, confrontational terms,” he said.

“I think focusing on the future, not that past – without, of course, either forgetting or ignoring the latter – is the best way forward for our part of the world,” Suleymanov said.

USAN’s public relations campaign to bring attention to the past, though, is beginning to pay dividends. Several members of the US House of Representatives have made official remarks in the Congressional Record commemorating the Khojaly massacre. Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons released a proclamation recognizing March 31 as “Azerbaijani Remembrance Day.”

The Nevada proclamation sparked a firestorm in the Armenian-American community, which objected to the proclamation’s definition of Azerbaijan as including Nagorno-Karabakh. “The Armenian-American community throughout the state of Nevada is shocked that Governor Gibbons was so easily misled and manipulated by foreign interest groups representing the governments of Azerbaijan and Turkey and their high-priced lobbyists,” stated Razmik Ablo, spokesman for the Armenian National Committee.

The “high-priced lobbyist” tag is one that is commonly used against USAN. But Baguirov claims his organization has a “very modest operating budget which is fully raised from our grassroots.” He declined to give an exact figure. Combined with its sister organization, the US Turkic Network, USAN claims it has 15,000 members.

While Baguirov is optimistic that USAN’s influence over American policy will increase with time, it concedes that, as a numbers game, diaspora Armenians will continue to exert greater influence in American politics. “Obviously, we are the David in this story, but we are very content with what we were able to achieve in such a short time-span,” Baguirov said.

Editor’s Note: Jessica Powley Hayden is a freelance reporter based in Baku.

May 10, 2009
Turkey Prioritizing its Relations with Azerbaijan

Turkey Prioritizing its Relations with Azerbaijan

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 87

May 6, 2009

By: Saban Kardas

The recent uncertainty surrounding Turkish-Azeri relations is giving way to a new period of optimism, ahead of high level diplomatic contacts. Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet Azeri officials in a bid to reassure Baku of Ankara’s intention to protect Azerbaijan’s interests during the Turkish-Armenian reconciliation process.

Turkey’s policy of conducting diplomacy within the South Caucasus in coordination with Azerbaijan, came under strain when it attempted to accelerate normalizing its relations with Armenia. Baku expressed its reservations over the rapid increase in diplomatic activity between Ankara -Yerevan which it perceived as “developing at the expense of Azerbaijan.” Azerbaijani officials tried to understand the content of the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement and how this might affect Turkish-Azeri relations (EDM, April 29, May 4). At the height of the discussions on President Obama’s April 24 address, the possibility that Ankara might ignore Baku’s sensitivities was often discussed within both countries. In addition to the reaction of Azerbaijani officials, such speculation added to public outrage toward the AKP government’s policies, both within Turkey and Azerbaijan. While delegations of Azeri parliamentarians and civil society organizations visited Turkey to garner political support for their plight, their Turkish counterparts also traveled to Azerbaijan in order to express solidarity with their Azeri brethren. Azeri deputies frequently appeared on live discussion programs on Turkish TV, seeking to mobilize public opinion, exerting additional pressure on the AKP government.

Against this background, the Turkish government is now refocusing its attention on addressing those concerns. At the same time, the Turkish press reported that Baku has toned down its criticism of Ankara’s policies toward Armenia. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev wants to reinforce bilateral ties, ensuring that he is kept informed about the progress on Turkish-Armenian rapprochement and securing greater leverage over Ankara’s policies toward Yerevan. Toward that end, Aliyev has decided to send a special envoy to Turkey (Referans, May 2).

Turkey’s first attempts to reach out to Baku came on May 4 when Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Araz Azimov, visited Ankara and held talks with Turkey’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Since it was Davutoglu’s first meeting after assuming office two days earlier, it had a symbolic meaning -demonstrating the value that Davutoglu attaches to Turkish-Azeri ties. In addition to exploring ways of improving bilateral relations through more frequent and high profile meetings between the leaders of the two countries, they also exchanged opinions on regional issues (Cihan Haber Ajansi, May 4).

As a further boost to Ankara’s policy to regain Baku’s confidence, Erdogan will visit Baku on May 12-13, and then meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on May 16 (Anadolu Ajansi, May 4). While commenting on his forthcoming trip, Erdogan sought to deflect recent criticism from Baku and domestic opposition parties. He maintained that his government did not deserve such heavy criticism, which he characterized as an unnecessary reaction to Turkey’s policy of rapprochement; especially concerning Ankara’s intention to re-open its border with Armenia. Erdogan also emphasized that some Azeri officials’ statements had hurt Ankara. He added that the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations will also serve Baku’s interests and he will seek to remove any misunderstandings during his visit next week (ANKA, May 5).

Moreover, Erdogan’s plan to meet Putin reflects Ankara’s belief that Russia remains a significant stakeholder in the resolution of Turkish-Armenian-Azeri problems and must act in concert with Russia, in order to advance its interests within the South Caucasus. Russia is one of the co-chairs of the Minsk Group working to resolve the Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and has been mediating in talks between Baku and Yerevan.

President Gul is taking additional steps toward addressing concerns over Ankara’s policies from Baku and domestic opposition parties. Gul met the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party Deniz Baykal, who had lambasted the recent moves towards rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia, arguing that Erdogan had betrayed Baku. Gul briefed Baykal about the developments within the South Caucasus in an attempt to influence Turkish public opinion (Cihan Haber Ajansi, May 5).

Gul also plans to hold two separate meetings with Aliyev and the Armenia’s President Serzh Sarksyan during the Eastern Partnership and Southern Corridor meetings in Prague on May 7-8 under the sponsorship of the Czech Republic, which currently holds the EU presidency (Anadolu Ajansi, May 5). In addition to discussing issues including energy security, the Prague summit will provide an opportunity to consider the resolution of problems between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Baku and Yerevan frequently conduct part of their diplomatic negotiations on the sidelines of such multilateral forums. In preparation for the Prague summit the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, met the foreign ministers of both countries separately in Washington. Clinton expressed her support and encouragement for these bilateral talks ahead of the Prague summit (www.cnnturk.com, May 5).

The Gul-Aliyev meeting might equally hold symbolic meaning, marking an improvement of ties between Ankara and Baku, after their recent tension. Previously, Aliyev had declined to participate in multilateral meetings where he might meet Gul, spurning Gul’s invitation to attend the Alliance of Civilizations platform in Istanbul (EDM, April 8) and later cancelling his participation in an energy summit in Sofia, attended by Gul (Takvim, April 23). The Turkish press speculated that Aliyev was deliberately avoiding these meetings to convey his discomfort over Ankara’s failure to consult him on the Turkish-Armenian talks. Gul consistently denied any such row, and even claimed that he kept Aliyev informed about developments by telephone (www.ntvmsnbc.com, April 28). A face-to-face meeting between the two leaders might remove the basis for any future speculation, as well as mend strained Turkish-Azeri relations.

https://jamestown.org/program/turkey-prioritizing-its-relations-with-azerbaijan/

May 9, 2009
Armenian, Azeri Leaders Report More Progress In Karabakh Talks

07.05.2009

Gevorg Stamboltsian

The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan reported further progress towards the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh after holding fresh talks in Prague on Thursday.

Presidents Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliev met there on the sidelines of a European Union summit that offered their nations as well as four other former Soviet republics to forge closer ties with the EU. The meeting began in the presence of their foreign ministers and the American, French and Russian diplomats co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group.

Aliev and Sarkisian then spoke one on one for more than two hours. Neither leader made any public statements afterwards, leaving it to the three mediators to present the results of the talks to journalists. Matthew Bryza, the chief U.S. negotiator, said the presidents made “significant progress” towards finalizing a framework peace agreement along the lines of the basic principles put forward by the co-chairs.

“Presidents Aliev and Sarkisian were able … to reduce their differences on our basic principles and generally agree on the basic ideas that they came here to discuss,” Bryza said. “We had some specific ideas and elements of the basic principles we are trying to finalize and they do agree on the basic approach.”

“We plan in coming days and weeks to work together with the foreign ministers to finalize the details of these key remaining concepts within the basic principles,” added the diplomat.

“We are preparing a breakthrough,” said Bernard Fassier, the group’s French co-chair. “We are in a position to identify what could be the break, but we are not yet through. So we need to progress and we are expecting to realize that in the following weeks.”

Fassier, Bryza and their Russian opposite number, Yuri Merzlyakov, refused to disclose what specifically Aliev and Sarkisian have agreed on.

In a written statement, Sarkisian’s office confirmed that the two presidents have narrowed their differences over “some points” of the proposed settlement. It said they instructed their foreign ministers to continue to work on its details with the mediators and to prepare for another Armenian-Azerbaijani summit.

Merzlyakov said Aliev and Sarkisian will likely meet again in Saint-Petersburg, Russia early next month. The two leaders held their first face-to-face talks there in June last year.

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1623675.html

May 7, 2009