ANKARA CONCERNED OVER MEDVEDEV’S PROPOSAL OF ARMENIAN, AZERBAIJANI AND RUSSIAN TRILATERAL MEETING
By Hakob Chakrian

AZG Armenian Daily
24/10/2008

Regional

It casts doubt on appropriateness of Turkish initiative to create a
"Caucasian stability and cooperation platform"

"The August events showed that every knotty problem should be solved
based on Principles of International Law, through negotiations. What
about the settlement stage, it is hard to maintain the level of
agreements reached up to now. Anyhow, I hope that in the nearest
future the meeting of the three presidents will take place in the
capital of Russia in order to continue discussions of the issue",
Russian President said October 21 in Yerevan at a joint press
conference with RA President Serzh Sargsian.

Turkish press touched upon Medvedev’s visit to Armenia from the aspect
of the initiative to settle Karabakh conflict and strengthening of
positions in the South Caucasus. It underlined the possibility of the
trilateral meeting of the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian presidents
in Moscow.

In its October 22 issue Turkish "Radikal" threw light on Russian
President’s visit under heading "Demand for Armenia increases".

New York turkishny.com website mentioned that Medvedev organizes a
meeting to settle Karabakh issue.

Turkish Public TV also touched upon the visit without going into
details.

According to "Radikal", Medvedev’s visit to Armenia was qualified
in the Russian press as a manifestation of "Calling Armenia to
order". According to the Turkish newspaper, after settling accounts
with Georgia, Russia gets down to a peacemaking mission between
Armenia and Azerbaijan in order to weaken the influence of the West
in the Caucasus.

"Radikal" also concentrates attention on the circumstance that
Medvedev’s visit took place after Gul’s visit to Yerevan, also several
visits of the US diplomats -Mathew Bryza, Daniel Fried.

On these grounds, the Turkish newspaper supposes that because of
the South Ossetia War Armenia was compelled to find a new ally,
and because of the Armenian neutrality Armenian-Russian relations
stagnated. And Medvedev’s visit aim’s at weakening of the West’s
influence on Armenia underlining that Yerevan’s only friend is Russia.

In order to substantiate the above-mentioned suppositions "Radikal"
quotes passages form Russian newspapers.

Turkishny.com website also attaches particular importance to the
proposal of Medvedev on trilateral meeting of the Armenian, Azerbaijani
and Russian presidents.

It may be explained by failure of Turkish Prime Minister Receb Tayyip
Erdogan’s initiative to create a "Caucasian security and cooperation
platform", as Medvedev’s proposal is quite realistic in contrast to
Erdogan’s initiative, and Russia has the potential to realize it.