SPONTANEOUS SOLUTION ABOARD A PLANE FOR CAUCASUS CRISIS

Today’s Zaman
Sept 16 2008
Turkey

The crisis in the Caucasus, despite all the problems and risks it
poses to countries of the region, has also opened the way for new
solutions such as the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform,
an idea that emerged from the brainstorming of Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan during a flight to
Moscow on Aug. 13, where they planned to discuss the recent crisis
between Russia and Georgia.

The Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform is a concept that
was first proposed in 2000 but became more relevant and was turned
into an official initiative after the efforts of Turkish diplomacy
during the peak of the crisis in the Caucasus in August.

The platform is planned to bring together Turkey, Russia, Georgia,
Azerbaijan and Armenia to find constructive ways to resolve crises
in the troubled Caucasus.

When Russia and Georgia fought a brief war following a Georgian
offensive in the breakaway region of South Ossetia, both Erdogan and
Babacan were on vacation, but they decided to travel to Moscow to seek
a peaceful solution to the crisis, diplomatic sources said. Their
plane departed from Bodrum, a popular Turkish holiday resort, and
during this flight Erdogan and Babacan decided to launch an initiative
for the platform.

Turkey’s aim is to create a solution mechanism in which the relevant
parties will be able to gather around the same table. Azerbaijan,
Armenia and Russia are warm to the idea. Georgia, however, has
demanded that before it agrees to join, Russia must first fulfill
its cease-fire obligations.

The US administration was skeptical about the platform at the beginning
but after Turkish diplomats explained what they are aiming to do and
after a long telephone conversation between Babacan and US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice, the US administration changed its stance and
now is at least neutral to the initiative, diplomatic sources noted.

For Armenia, since its border with Iran is mountainous and not suitable
for transportation and the border with Turkey is closed, its main
trading partner is Georgia, but during the war, the scarcity of goods
was felt in the landlocked country. Yerevan recognized that delaying a
resolution of problems could create bigger problems. Azerbaijan took
a similar lesson from the crisis; it was able to see that its main
oil export route, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, was at risk and
that sudden developments could occur in Nagorno-Karabakh similar to
what happened in South Ossetia. According to sources familiar with
the platform, the war in South Ossetia led Azerbaijan and Armenia
to reconsider their problems, and it would not be surprising if the
negotiation process between Yerevan and Baku accelerates after the
elections in Azerbaijan in October.

Armenia warms to ‘genocide commission’

The developments between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the warm atmosphere
that emerged after President Abdullah Gul’s visit to Yerevan on Sept. 6
for a soccer game between the two countries’ national teams may lead
to a new phase in Turkey-Armenia relations, too. Diplomatic sources
familiar with developments in the Caucasus underlined that during
Gul’s visit, the Turkish side got the impression that Armenia is more
open and ready to show a stronger political will regarding research
into the 1915 events which Armenians claim amount to genocide. Ankara
is more optimistic now that Armenia could agree to establish a joint
commission to study this period. The same sources point out that in
addition to the commission of historians, other commissions such as
one to improve cultural ties or economic cooperation may come to the
agenda, but, of course, these developments will take time.

The sources recalled that there were meetings between high-ranking
diplomats of Turkey and Armenia and that these meetings have opened the
way to regular meetings in the future. There will be a meeting between
the foreign ministers of Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan, probably on
the sidelines of this month’s UN General Assembly in New York.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in a show of
solidarity with Azerbaijan, a Turkic-speaking ally that was fighting
Armenian-backed separatists over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. A
solution to that dispute is seen as crucial to any move to establish
diplomatic ties between Turkey and Armenia.