MEDIATORS WARN TURKEY ON PRESSING KARABAKH LINKAGE
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A NKARA (Combined Sources)-The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict cannot
be linked to the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations, a top
diplomat heading international efforts to mediate a solution to the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict said Monday, warning Ankara that any attempt
to link the two can spoil both processes, reported the Turkish Hurriyet
Daily Newspaper.
Ambassador Bernard Fassier, the French co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk
Group, was in the Turkish capital Ankara meeting with Foreign Ministry
Undersecretary Ertugrul Apaka.
"There have recently been many visits from Turkey to Azerbaijan."
Fassier said at a press conference in Baku Saturday before flying to
Ankara. "We will discuss them."
Fassier visited Ankara on the last leg of a regional tour that
included Yerevan and Baku. The tour comes as Turkey, a non-actor in the
Karabakh conflict, has sought to boost its role in the peace process
by conditioning the normalization of its relations with Armenia on
a resolution to the Karabakh conflict favoring its ally Azerbaijan.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan explicitly reaffirmed
that linkage during his visit to Azerbaijan last week. He traveled
to Russia on May 16 where he sought a greater role for his country in
the Karabakh negotiation process in talks with Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin.
"Occupation of Karabakh is the cause here and closing of the border
is the effect. It is impossible for us to open the border unless
that occupation ends," he told a joint press conference in Baku with
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.
Such a condition should not be expected, Fassier said Monday, speaking
to reporters in Ankara. "There has to be a full settlement allowing
the changing of all parameters comprehensively," he said.
Despite Erdogan’s insistence, a linkage between the two issues does not
exist and that the Turkish Prime Minister’s ongoing attempt to draw a
connection between the two can damage regional relations, Fassier said.
"The normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations should not be confused
with the Karabakh conflict," the French diplomat said in Baku. "These
are different and parallel processes."
Fassier said the Minsk Group, co-chaired by France, Russia, and the US,
considers negotiations between Turkey and Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh
peace talks to be parallel processes that can never cross.
The Minsk Group met with the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
in Prague on May 7 and described those talks as constructive and
positive talks.
Fassier said that Armenia and Azerbaijan are closer than ever to
a compromise solution and linking the Karabakh peace process with
Turkey’s negotiations with Armenia can jeopardize the new momentum
in the talks.
Armenia has also criticized Erdogan for making the normalization
of Turkish-Armenian relations conditional on a Nagorno-Karabakh
settlement, saying that such statements could hamper both the
Armenian-Azerbaijani, as well as the Armenian-Turkish negotiations.
President Sarkisian and Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian reacted to
Erdogan’s statements as they separately met in Yerevan on May 14 with
Brian Fall, Britain’s special representative for the South Caucasus.
In a written statement Sarkisian said that "any Turkish attempt
to interfere in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem can
only harm that process." While Nalbanidan, in a separate statement
said Erdogan’s stance "precludes further progress in the ongoing
Turkish-Armenian fence-mending negotiations."