Armenia returns to busy Turkish agenda

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 Loğoğlu 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 Loğoğlu, 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.”


/Hurriyet Daily News/