Azeri daily blames government for change in Turkey’s stance on Armenia

Yeni Musavat, Baku
28 Jun 04

Turkey no longer puts forward the liberation of Azerbaijani lands as a
precondition for establishing ties with Armenia, the Azerbaijani
opposition daily Yeni Musavat has said. The Azerbaijani authorities
are to blame for this since they have failed to support Turkey in the
Cyprus issue, the daily reported. The following is an excerpt from
Konul Samilqizi’s report by Azerbaijani newspaper Yeni Musavat on 28
June headlined “Turkey responds to Ilham Aliyev’s betrayal”;
subheadings inserted editorially:

Ankara intends to establish ties with Armenia and no longer puts
forward the Karabakh issue as a precondition for that. Remarks of
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan give grounds to say so.

Responding to questions at the international conference “NATO at a new
turning point”, financed by the German Marshall Fund of the USA,
Erdogan said: “We do not want to sever ties with Armenia. We want to
preserve them. We have always wanted to remove obstacles and achieve
peace. We are trying to quickly resolve the grievances and conflicts
we have with our neighbours. However, if Armenia runs away we will go
after it only up to a certain point. We advise the following to
Armenia: should they continue with this ‘genocide’, then they will not
get a result. Leave this issue for historians. We are building the
future world. Otherwise, the future generations will not have a good
opinion of us.”

Erdogan said that what matters now is how the Armenian people live and
this should be taken into consideration. He even criticized Turkey’s
stance by saying that “Turkey did not have positive and good relations
with its neighbours for years”. He said that Turkey had suffered
economic losses as a result. Relations are improving now and trade is
on the increase, Erdogan said.

Karabakh no longer on agenda

It can be seen from Erdogan’s answer that the only main precondition
set for establishing ties with Armenia is that the Armenians drop
their fake “genocide” claims. This amounts to a step back in the
Turkish leadership’s position because until now Ankara cited
liberation of Azerbaijan’s lands occupied by Armenia among the main
preconditions. In effect, Turkey has now rejected the Karabakh
condition.

In the view of Qabil Huseynli, deputy chairman of the Musavat Party
and a political analyst, Azerbaijan never used to be on top of
conditions put forward by Turkey in exchange for improving relations
with Armenia. “This was only one of the demands. It is clear to
everyone that Turkey is first of all interested in resolving its own
problems and therefore demands that the fake ‘genocide’ claim be
dropped. Because this issue threatens Turkey’s foreign policy
interests. I personally have never believed that Turkey does not
establish relations with Armenia only because of the Karabakh
problem. This condition could have been a diplomatic move or maybe it
pursued propaganda objectives. Now it has been dropped completely.”

Huseynli said that this was caused by global processes and Turkey’s
role in them.

[Passage omitted: Turkey’s relations with the USA and the European
Union]

Cyprus vote

Obviously, Azerbaijan’s clan-based regime has played an important and
perhaps a crucial role in Turkey’s decision to drop the Karabakh
condition. Regardless of their propaganda and diplomatic objectives,
Turkish officials have been defending Azerbaijan’s interests over the
past several years.

The regime established in October 2004 in Azerbaijan – with assistance
from the Erdogan government – has taken many steps damaging the
strategic partnership with Turkey. It is enough to recall the
Azerbaijani government’s stance on the Cyprus issue to understand the
position of Turkey. Our attentive readers probably remember that the
clan’s MPs did not attend the PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe] vote on Cyprus. Commenting on this, the head of the
delegation, MP Samad Seyidov, openly said that this was a deliberate
political move – the deputies with ill-gotten mandates did not vote on
Cyprus because they thought about Karabakh.

[Passage omitted: Azerbaijan criticized by the Turkish press]

Greek president’s visit

Incidentally, we must note that during a press conference held jointly
with Greek President [Konstandinos Stefanopoulos], [Azerbaijani
President] Ilham Aliyev did not respond when a Greek journalist
described Turkey as an “invader”. What is more, Aliyev promised not
to recognize [the Turkish Republic of Northern] Cyprus. When one takes
into consideration this pledge to the Greeks and the non-participation
in the Cyprus vote, Erdogan’s remarks do not look surprising. Our
newspaper said in the wake of that press conference that Turkey will
not leave this betrayal unanswered. The response came faster than
expected and in an unforeseen form.