Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Nov 23 2008
`Turkey’s Caucasus initiative has improved Turkish-Armenian relations’
The tension between Georgia and Russia, which led to war in August,
changed the balance of power in the Caucasus, as well as around the
world, and Turkey and Armenia have benefited from it, according to
specialists who came together for a discussion of Turkish-Armenian
relations in Yerevan.
Turkish-Armenian relations gained momentum after a regional crisis
erupted following a Georgian military offensive in its Russian-backed
breakaway region of South Ossetia and Ankara came up with a proposal
to prevent such disputes in the future. The Turkish government
promoted a platform called the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Pact
(CSP) supported by visits to Moscow, Tbilisi and Baku. Armenia backed
the idea as well. `The Caucasus stability initiative made Turkey
engage directly with Armenia. Even if the initiative dies, this is the
positive outcome,’ said Sabiha Senyücel from the Turkish
Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV).
She also said the idea did not come out of the blue and that Turkish
and Armenian officials have been negotiating for the past two
years. `But still, the CSP initiative served very well to prepare the
ground for direct talks with Armenia,’ she added. Turkey severed its
ties with Armenia in the early 1990s in protest of the Armenian
occupation of the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkish
official policy requires that the normalization of ties depends on
Armenian withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh as well as the termination
of Armenia’s support for claims of an Armenian genocide at the hands
of the Ottoman Empire and the official recognition of the current
borders between the two countries by Armenia.
However, a chief Turkish foreign policy adviser signaled recently that
Turkey may modify its stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Ahmet
DavutoÄ?lu, a major architect of the foreign policies of the
Turkish government, said in Washington in late October that unlike its
unchanged position on the Armenian claims of genocide, the Turkish
government may consider dropping or modifying its preconditions
related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Senyücel told Sunday’s Zaman that if this becomes reality, then
a major obstacle before Turkish-Armenian dialogue will be removed.
`For Turkey to have a stronger and freer hand in its initiatives
including the CSP, it needs to continue the rapprochement process with
Armenia. And on this, the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
occupies a vital place,’ she said. Sergey Minasyan, the head of the
political studies department at the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan,
said that the main problem between Armenia and Turkey is not the
Nagorno-Karabakh issue. `If Turkey understands that, too, it will be
very good,’ he told Sunday’s Zaman.
He reiterated that both Azerbaijanis and Armenians are concerned about
the increasing Russian influence in the region. So even though they
recently signed a pact with Russia, following the ceremony they paid
visits to their traditional allies. `After signing the pact, the
Armenian president went to Paris, and the Azerbaijani president went
to Ankara for support,’ he said referring to the joint declaration
signed by Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and Azerbaijani President
Ä°lham Aliyev in Moscow in the presence of Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev at the beginning of November.
Proposed last month by Medvedev, the talks have been interpreted as a
renewed Kremlin effort to strengthen its influence in the energy-rich
Caspian region. Nagorno-Karabakh has been under the control of ethnic
Armenian forces since a six-year conflict that killed about 30,000 and
displaced 1 million people before a truce was reached in 1994. Some
clashes have continued, and international efforts to settle the
conflict have failed. Back in September, the foreign ministers of
Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan came together in a trilateral meeting
on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York to discuss
efforts to resolve the bitter territorial dispute.
Masis Mayilian, an independent expert from Nagorno-Karabakh, said that
if Turkey stays neutral as a mediator, it can influence Azerbaijan to
reach a settlement. However, he said Turkey’s `brotherly’ feelings
toward its regional ally, Azerbaijan, harm its neutral role.
The specialists gathered in Yerevan on Friday at the Caucasus
Institute to hold a workshop titled `Turkey-Armenia Dialogue Series:
Breaking the Vicious Cycle.’ It was jointly organized by TESEV and the
Caucasus Institute.
23 November 2008, Sunday
AYÅ?E KARABAT ANKARA