Kocharian Showed Yerevan’s True Intentions

Published: 5/17/2005
Turkish Press.com

BY SEMIH IDIZ MILLIYET- At the Council of Europe’s Warsaw summit,
despite ‘important’ issues on the table such as improving human rights
and stepping up the fight against terrorism and human trafficking,
attention was focused on a meeting to take place between Erdogan
and Kocharian.

Foreign media members, knowing well that the atmosphere would warm
up if this meeting took place, pressed their Turkish and Armenian
counterparts for information throughout the day. However this
long-expected meeting did not take place on the first day of the
summit. Turkish and Armenian diplomats didn’t speak a word to each
other and observers don’t expect the meeting to take place on the
second day either.

While diplomats are being silent on this situation, the press and
other observers at the summit think that there are a few reasons why
the meeting hasn’t happened. The first reason is that no progress
was made on the Nagorno-Karabagh problem in the meeting held between
Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. If positive results
had emerged from this meeting, it was also expected to have a positive
effect on the Erdogan-Kocharian meeting, because Turkey did not
forget the commitments it made to Azerbaijan within the framework
of peace efforts. However there are other factors hindering the
Erdogan-Kocharian meeting.

The wait and see position: The Turkish side was eager to hear
Kocharian’s speech at this important summit. The reason for this
‘wait and see’ position is, some time ago when the Armenian president
sent a leter to Erdogan, he didn’t offer anything new to the Turkish
side In the end, Kocharian included the issue of the alleged Armenian
genocide in his speech, confirming Turkey’s negative expectations,
and did not say much to support Turkey’s peace efforts. However,
he also revealed the intentions of Yerevan, saying that Europe must
be a continent made up of borders and one where embargoes are not in
force. It could be understood that with these words he meant Turkey.

The Turkish side expects Armenia to create a different atmosphere on
some subjects, but has yet to see any hints of this in Warsaw.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress