NO PLACE FOR TURKEY’S MEDIATION IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT
Panorama.am
17:28 22/07/2009
Turkey’s mediation in this process is not possible, OSCE Minsk Group
French co-chair Bernard Fassier told "Today’s Zaman".
Ankara says the Turkish-Armenian and Azerbaijani-Armenian processes are
separate, although progress on one will positively affect the other.
Recalling that Azerbaijan and Turkey consider themselves "one nation,
two states," Fassier ruled out the possibility of Turkey’s mediation in
the process, indicating that Turkey was actually a party in the issue.
"Turkey’s mediation in this process is not possible. Common sense
demands this," he said, while reiterating that the Nagorno-Karabakh
process and the normalization efforts between Ankara and Yerevan
should be considered two independent processes. Fassier, nonetheless,
called the two issues "two processes within the same regional area"
and admitted that any progress in one of the two processes might have a
"positive and useful" impact on the other process.
The Nagorno-Karabakh issue has sometimes been used in domestic policy
in Turkey, and linking the Turkish-Armenian and Azerbaijani-Armenian
processes might lead to no resolution for either of the problems,
he also warned.