AZERBAIJAN’S DANGEROUS DANCE WITH RUSSIA
by Lale Sariibrahimoglu
Today’s Zaman
April 14 2009
Turkey
As Armenia and Turkey come close to normalizing ties, which will not
only contribute to the stability of the volatile South Caucasus but
also to relations between Ankara and Yerevan, Azerbaijan has taken a
last minute stance that can only be perceived as an act of sabotage
supported by Russia.
Turkish diplomatic sources are of the view that Russia was behind
the last-minute snag created by Azerbaijan over Armenian-Turkish
rapprochement. Russia has long benefited from the Azerbaijani-Armenian
and Armenian-Turkish dispute. That dispute, however, has a serious
potential to negatively affect ties between NATO allies Turkey and the
US, too, because the US Congress has already made several attempts
in the past decade to recognize the events of 1915 that took place
during Ottoman Turkish rule as genocide of Armenians.
During his April 6-7 visit to Turkey, US President Barack Obama
reiterated his election campaign pledge to recognize the events of
1915 as a genocide of Armenians, but stated that the US will not
prevent Armenian-Turkish relations to progress. This was widely read
as a message that Obama will not use the word "genocide" during his
April 24 speech if he makes one. April 24 is regarded as the day mass
killings of Armenians began in 1915.
There is a strong belief that if Obama had the intention of using
the word "genocide" during his April speech, he would not have
visited Ankara.
Turkey strongly denies genocide allegations and has warned the US
for decades that if its Congress passes a resolution to this end and
if a US president utters the word "genocide," it will irreparably
damage relations between the two allies, which need each other in
this volatile region of the Middle East, the Caucasus, the Balkans
and the eastern Mediterranean.
But finally, Turkey, which has done nothing for decades apart from
denying genocide allegations, came up with a proposal to Armenia
in 2005 to set up a committee of historians to investigate the 1915
events while broadening its package of proposals to begin relations
with its northeastern neighbour, Armenia.
That package includes a solution to the Nagornyy Karabakh dispute,
an Azerbaijani territory with a predominantly Armenian population,
an opening of the border between Turkey and Armenia that Turkey
closed in 1993 after the Azerbaijani-Armenian dispute over Nagornyy
Karabakh broke out, an opening of diplomatic ties with Armenia as well
as the start of deliberations among historians of both countries on
the genocide allegations.
However, with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s last-minute refusal
to participate in the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC)
meeting held in Istanbul last week, it has become clear that Baku
protests Ankara-Yerevan rapprochement before progress is made on
Nagornyy Karabakh. Armenian-Turkish relations have once again been
hijacked by the Baku-Yerevan dispute.
A former Turkish ambassador to the US who also served as the Turkish
ambassador in Baku, Faruk Logoglu, is of the belief that although
the Armenian-Turkish package of solutions will be beneficial for the
whole region, Turkey has neglected the public diplomacy aspect of
the rapprochement.
"Turkish decision makers should have informed the parties in Parliament
about the steps taken on improving ties with Armenia while the Turkish
public should also have been informed to a certain extent," Logoglu
said last Sunday during a roundtable discussion hosted by CNNTurk.
However, the question is whether the Aliyev administration in Baku
really cares about public diplomacy and hence the reaction seen from
his people.
Instead, Aliyev has apparently used his state-controlled media, which
published last week anti-rapprochement stories citing the unresolved
status of the Nagornyy Karabakh dispute, creating a last-minute snag
to prevent a breakthrough in Armenian-Turkish relations.
Murat Mercan, a deputy from the ruling Justice and Development
Party (AK Party) and head of the parliamentary Foreign Relations
Committee, noted on the same program that Turkey informed Baku about
all bilateral talks that have taken place between Turkey and Armenia
formally and informally over the past several years. Mercan’s remarks
raised question marks over the sincerity of Aliyev’s decision to not
attend the Istanbul gathering. He did not cite any reason for his
absence from the event.
The reaction from Azerbaijan, which has already begun supplying gas to
the European markets via Turkey, bypassing Russia, has forced Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to state on April 9 that the
absence of a resolution between Armenia and Azerbaijan concerning the
Nagornyy Karabakh dispute stands as an obstacle to ongoing negotiations
for a normalization of ties between Armenia and Turkey.
This past week’s developments indicate that behind Aliyev’s negative
stance, fuelling its own media and the public against Armenian-Turkish
progress in relations, has been Russia, which has several benefits
in sabotaging the arrival of stability in the Caucasus.
The implementation of the package long negotiated between Turkey
and Armenia, with Azerbaijan being informed of almost all steps,
has now been jeopardized by both Azerbaijan and Russia.
The US has been of the strong belief that implementing the
Armenian-Turkish package soon will give US President Obama
ammunition to fire back at Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House
of Representatives, and her supporters in their attempts to pass a
resolution describing the 1915 events as a genocide of Armenians.
Instead of conditioning the normalization of Turkish-Armenian
relations on Nagornyy Karabakh, Turkey should unveil and implement the
package. Such a policy will mark a big step in solving the Nagornyy
Karabakh dispute.