DAVUTOGLU TO VISIT MOSCOW LATER THIS WEEK
Emine Kart

Today’s Zaman
30 June 2009, Tuesday

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is scheduled to pay a working
visit later this week to the Russian capital, where he will have
an opportunity to discuss a wide range of bilateral issues with
his counterpart.

Davutoglu and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, were both on the
Greek island of Corfu over the weekend, which was the venue for both a
meeting of the NATO-Russia Council and a foreign ministerial gathering
of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Davutoglu and Lavrov, who will meet on Thursday, when the former
pays a working visit to Moscow, did not have an opportunity to have
a bilateral meeting in Corfu. Nonetheless, Ankara has welcomed the
fact that NATO and Russia on Saturday resumed formal cooperation on
broad security threats despite failing to bridge major differences
over Georgia in their first high-level talks since the war in the
Caucasus region.

"Turkey has always favored friendly relations and a cooperation
mechanism between NATO and Russia. Although the meeting in Corfu
has symbolic importance, a path to dialogue has been opened now,"
Turkish diplomatic sources, speaking on condition of anonymity,
told Today’s Zaman.

Davutoglu’s visit to Moscow will come days before a tentatively
planned meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders expected to take
place in Russia in mid-July. Diplomatic sources in Ankara, meanwhile,
declined to elaborate on the agenda of the meeting between Davutoðlu
and Lavrov, only saying that all kinds of issues that are of common
interest for the two countries, ranging from energy to trade, will
be on the agenda of the talks.

Last week, a US negotiator announced that mediators hope to clinch an
agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the principles of a peace
deal on breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh at talks tentatively planned for
mid-July in Russia. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew
Bryza said he and his fellow mediators from France and Russia were
"shooting for" a full framework agreement by the end of 2009. But he
conceded the risk of a last-minute breakdown of the kind that derailed
earlier efforts to broker an agreement between the Caucasus neighbors,
who continue to exchange fire over their tense frontline 15 years
after major hostilities ended.

Davutoglu, meanwhile, is expected to pay a two-day bilateral visit
to Bucharest, Romania, on July 3-4 following his visit to Moscow,
Today’s Zaman learned from reliable sources.