DAVUTOGLU: MINSK GROUP NOT ABLE TO MAKE PROGRESS

Today’s Zaman
May 26 2009
Turkey

Hours before his visit to the Azerbaijani capital for an official
visit, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu underlined that the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group
of countries, mediating talks between Yerevan and Baku to resolve
the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, has yet to make progress. Davutoglu’s
remarks came late on Sunday while speaking with the Anatolia news
agency in Damascus, where he represented Turkey at the 36th session
of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference (OIC).

Recalling that he would depart on Monday from Damascus for Baku with
his Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov, who also participated
in the OIC meeting, on board his private plane, Davutoglu noted that
the Nagorno-Karabakh issue has remained unresolved for 17 years.

"We will head to Baku together on board the same plane. This has turned
out to be something like ‘one state, two nations’; ‘one nation, two
delegations’," Davutoglu said, in apparent reference to the common
motto of "one nation, two states" reigning in Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Davutoglu, whose visit to Baku will be his second official visit upon
being appointed to his current post earlier this month, had traveled
by private plane to Damascus on Saturday morning accompanied by
a delegation of diplomats from his ministry. "It is not possible
to disagree with [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev’s remarks
concerning the performance of the Minsk Group," Davutoglu said,
referring to Aliyev’s recent remarks in which he reiterated the
inefficiency of the 17-year activity of OSCE Minsk Group, created to
bring together a conference on conflict settlement. "As a matter of
fact, the historical record exposes this [fact]. Because no progress
has been made, it is now necessary to rescue this issue from being in
the status of a frozen conflict. Turkey will continue its efforts,"
Davutoglu said.