AZERBAIJAN CONCERNED AT TURKEY-ARMENIA THAW
By Afet Mehtiyeva

Financial Mirror
and_World_News/14707
April 2 2009
Cyprus

Azerbaijan expressed concern on Thursday at the prospect of the
border being opened between its old foe Armenia and Turkey, where
U.S. President Barack Obama visits next week.

With growing signs of a thaw in relations between Muslim Turkey
and Armenia after a century of hostility, the chances have improved
sharply of Ankara opening the frontier it closed in 1993.

Turkey’s closure of the 268 km (166 mile) border had been in solidarity
with Azerbaijan, which was fighting Armenian-backed separatists over
the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region — a festering conflict that
remains unresolved.

"If the border is opened before the withdrawal of Armenian troops
from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, it would run counter
to Azerbaijan’s national interests," Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar
Mamedyarov told Azeri ANS television

"We have conveyed this opinion to the Turkish leadership," he said,
adding that Turkey accepted Azerbaijan’s concerns.

Turkey — Baku’s principal ally in the frozen conflict — has no
diplomatic ties with Armenia and a relationship haunted by the killings
of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World
War One.

But both say they are close to a breakthrough on "normalising
relations", which could lead to the opening of the border. Such a
step would have major significance for Turkey’s role as a regional
power, its European Union membership bid and for energy flows from
the Caspian Sea to Europe.

Analysts and local media reports suggest an announcement could come
this month.

OBAMA VISIT TO TURKEY

They say the timing is linked to the visit next week to Turkey by
Obama, who pledged during his election campaign to call the World
War One killings genocide. Turkey denies there was a genocide, saying
the deaths were the result of inter-ethnic conflict that also killed
Muslim Turks.

Obama’s April 5-7 visit is an acknowledgement of Turkey’s regional
reach, economic power and status as a secular Muslim democracy.

NATO ally Turkey could help Washington in confrontations and conflicts
that stretch from Israel to Afghanistan.

Diplomats say Azerbaijan fears a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement would
weaken its hand in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

But landlocked Armenia, reeling from the effects of the global crisis
and its ally Russia’s drift into recession, would derive enormous
economic benefits from the opening of the border and the potential
restoration of rail links.

Western-backed pipelines pumping oil and gas from the Caspian Sea to
Turkey’s Mediterranean coast bypass Armenia and instead bend north
through neighbouring Georgia.

Georgia’s security as an energy transit route was severely tested
during last year’s five-day war with Russia, and Armenia stands to
present itself as an attractive alternative.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress