BABACAN WELCOMES RUSSIAN ROLE IN KARABAKH TALKS
Today’s Zaman
Nov 5 2008
Turkey
Foreign Minister Ali Babacan has praised Russia for hosting talks
between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on the long-running
dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, dismissing suggestions that Moscow’s
diplomatic drive is an attempt to steal the mediator role from Ankara.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hosted talks between Azerbaijani
leader Ä°lham Aliyev and Armenian leader Serzh Sarksyan on Sunday. A
declaration read by Medvedev after the three-way talks said the
presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to have more talks to
reach a settlement on the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
"It is a fact that no solution can be achieved in Nagorno-Karabakh
without Russia’s support and consent," Babacan told reporters en route
to Marseilles to attend a Euro-Mediterranean meeting late on Monday.
Turkey proposed a regional platform for discussion and the resolution
of conflicts in the troubled Caucasus after a brief war between Russia
and Georgia. With the planned Caucasus Stability and Cooperation
Platform, Ankara aims to bring Turkey, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan
and Georgia together around the same table.
Babacan, however, added that it is not possible to reach a resolution
in this region without including Turkey and the United States.
Steps taken by Turkey since September 2007 at various levels to
contribute to the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and
steps taken by Russia on the same issue are complementary to each
other, the minister noted.
Babacan said that Turkey’s move to hold dialogue with Yerevan has
annoyed the Armenian diaspora, which has exerted hectic efforts for
global recognition of Armenian genocide allegations.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in protest of Armenian
occupation of a chunk of Azerbaijani territory in the Nagorno-Karabakh
dispute. Back in September, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Armenia
and Azerbaijan held a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the
UN General Assembly in New York to discuss efforts to resolve
the bitter territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over
Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian backed
Turkey’s regional cooperation proposal, and Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said regional problems must be resolved
in appropriate ways.
Aliyev and Sarksyan, who had last met to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh
in June 2007, agreed over the weekend in Moscow to instruct their
foreign ministers "to speed up further moves in the negotiating
process." Babacan, a former economy minister, also touched on the
ongoing global economic crisis, citing the absence of a global
auditing structure vis-a-vis the global economy as the main reason
behind the crisis.
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