Today.Az » Politics » Turkish expert: Joint mechanism should be developed in Azerbaijan-Turkey relations
07 October 2010 [15:15] - Today.Az
The short-term crisis in the relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey last fall put the revision of the bilateral relations between the countries on the agenda for the first time, Cagrı Erhan, Director of the Centre for European Studies of the Ankara University, said.
"The only reason of this crisis is lack of coordination of the actions," Erhan said in the Center for Strategic Studies under the Azerbaijani President, speaking on "Turkish-Azerbaijani relations: expectations and results" today.
Strategic relations between the two countries must turn into a single mechanism of the Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance.
The crisis in relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey was provoked by signing the protocols to normalize relations between Ankara and Yerevan on October 10, 2009. However, the documents were not ratified by the Turkish and Armenian parliaments.
Diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey were broken due to Armenian claims of an alleged genocide and its occupation of Azerbaijani lands. The border between countries was closed in 1993.
It was impossible to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia without resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The Armenian side understood it well, Erhan said. However, this issue did not have enough coordination of actions between Turkey and Azerbaijan, he added.
The text of the protocol was handed over to the Azerbaijani side through Russia but not Turkey, the expert said.
"Despite Turkey launched the process [of normalizing relations with Armenia] to cease the occupation of Azerbaijani lands, it was impossible to achieve goals by these protocols, on the contrary, the situation worsened," he said.
He said that the signed protocols have resulted in crisis in relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan, destabilization of the situation in the Turkish Parliament. As a result, the Armenian parliament refused from ratifying them.
However, the protocols revealed gaps in the Turkish-Azerbaijani relations.
"Despite Turkey and Azerbaijan signed agreements in all areas of cooperation, we must develop a mechanism for this relations in accordance with the analogy of the mechanisms developed by Turkey with several Arab countries," he said.
As an example, he cited the abolition of visa regime between Turkey and some Arab countries, as well as a free trade zone between Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
Another important factor in strengthening the coordination between countries is the cooperation of Turkish and Azerbaijani diasporas abroad, he said.
The number of Americans of Azeri origin exceeds the number of Turks, living in the U.S., he said. Most of them came from Iran.
"But it does not deal with quantity, but quality. Turks and Azerbaijanis, living abroad, must establish the lobby, which can withstand the Diaspora," he said.
Erhan also recalled that sufficient influence of the Turkish-Azerbaijani lobby was not felt in the Senate and the U.S. Congress over the last few years. That's why the Foreign Relations Committee of the lower chamber of Congress adopted a document that recognizes the so-called "Armenian genocide" last spring.
"It is necessary to establish ties not only between our two governments, but societies of the two countries, including the press, universities and think tanks. All this should turn into one common strategy, otherwise it will be late," Erhan said.
/Trend/
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