TURKEY SEEKS MEETING WITH ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN
Hurriye
Sept 10 2008
Turkey
Turkey’s FM Wednesday said he was trying to organize a meeting with his
Armenia and Azerbaijan counterparts to discuss decades-old disputes
plaguing ties between them. The Azerbaijani FM responded positively
to talk of a trilateral meeting, a spokesman said. (UPDATED)
The idea emerged during a historic visit to Yerevan by President
Abdullah Gul on Saturday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said
in an interview with NTV television.
"We have many reasons to be hopeful, the most important of which is
the presence of a strong political will" to improve ties, the minister
said in an interview with NTV television.
Babacan and Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian are already
scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in
New York later this month.
Babacan said he suggested that their Azeri counterpart also join the
meeting and Nalbandian agreed.
"We will now seek Azerbaijan’s consent… The problems between Turkey
and Armenia and not independent from the problems between Azerbaijan
and Armenia," he said.
The issue would be discussed when Gul visits Baku, he said. Gul
Wednesday will fly to Azerbaijan to meet his Azerbaijani counterpart
Ilham Aliyev.
Babacan said Gul’s visit to Armenia, the first by a Turkish head of
state, had raised hopes that the two sides could mend fences.
"In our talks in Yerevan we decided to speed up the process (of
reconciliation)… We are entering a period in which we will have
frequent contacts," he added.
"Armenia seems to have passed a threshold now, and the diplomatic
traffic and our impression from the Armenian president and the foreign
minister reveals that there is a strong will for solution in Armenia,"
Babacan also said.
"They do understand our sensitivities and we do understand theirs. We
have many reasons to be optimistic," he added.
Babacan, however, said "there were quite a few problematic issues"
between Turkey and Armenia, such as the incidents of 1915, and the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Gul paid last week a landmark visit to Yerevan after Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan invited him to watch a 2010 World Cup qualifying match
between the two countries’ national teams.
Turkey is among the first countries that recognized Armenia when it
declared its independency in the early 1990s.
However there are 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.
BABACAN TALKS TO AZERI FM Babacan held a telephone conversation with
his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov, spokesman for the
Turkish Foreign Ministry, Burak Ozugergin, told the Anatolian Agency.
He said Babacan and Mammadyarov discussed the recent situation in
the Caucasus, and added Mammadyarov gave a positive response on a
possible trilateral meeting between the foreign ministers of Turkey,
Armenia and Azerbaijan in the United States.
Ozugergin said Turkish foreign minister gave information to Mammadyarov
on Gul’s Yerevan visit and on his talks with Nalbandian.
Babacan told Mammadyarov Turkey would always support Azerbaijan,
Ozugergin added.