AZERBAIJANIS SPLIT OVER TURKISH PRESIDENT’S YEREVAN VISIT

Hurriye
Sept 3 2008
Turkey

The Azerbaijani-Turkish Inter-Parliamentary Working Group will discuss
Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s expected visit to Armenia, an Azerian
news agency reported on Wednesday.

"During discussions, there are sharp opposers and supporters of
Turkish President’s visit to Armenia," the head of the Working Group,
MP Nizami Jafarov, told TrendNews.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan invited Gul to Armenia to watch
together the 2010 World Cup qualifying round game between the two
countries national teams on Sept. 6 to mark "a new symbolic start in
the countries’ relations".

Gul’s close circles and recent reports claim the Turkish president
would accept the invitation and travel to Yerevan to watch the
game. But Turkish officials have refrained from revealing the final
decision until the last moment.

If Gul visits Yerevan, Turkey, which has no established diplomatic
relations with its neighbor Armenia, therefore would have formal
contact at the presidential level on the occasion of the football
match.

The public of Azerbaijan attentively follows whether Turkey will
accept the invitation extended by Armenia, TrendNews reported.

Turkey is among the first countries that recognized Armenia when it
declared its independency. However there is no diplomatic relations
between the two countries, as Armenia presses the international
community to admit the so-called "genocide" claims instead of accepting
Turkey’s call to investigate the allegations, and its invasion of
20 percent of Azerbaijani territory despite U.N. Security Council
resolutions on the issue.

Jafarov said any change in either Azerbaijan or Turkey’s attitude
towards these or other questions can not change the relations between
Turkey and Azerbaijan, the Azeri news agency reported. He added
it deals with the tactical change in Turkey’s attitude towards the
Armenian problem.

The Azeri MP said the whole world is concerned by the non-solution
on the Armenian problem for such authoritative countries as Turkey
and Azerbaijan, and added that therefore such accelerative attempts
may be made.

"The development of events shows that the Turkish president’s taking
such a step in the attitude towards Armenia is a tactical move. This
does not change its attitude towards Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan will not
change its attitude towards Turkey due to such a step. The matter
is that a new period has already begun in the attitude towards the
Armenian issue. This is Turkey’s initial steps. But I think that it is
impossible to make claims that with this, Turkey will make concessions
to Armenia, change its policy, implement dictate of great forces,"
Jafarov said.

The MP does not believe that in the present condition, Turkey will
pursue a policy strengthening Armenia because Armenia’s attitude
towards Turkey is clear, according to TrendNews. Turkey can not take
revenge in the face of Armenia’s aggression, Jafarov told the agency.