TURKISH OPINIONS: ‘ONE NATION, TWO STATES,’ AN UNREAL IDEA

HULIQ
Tert.am
Sept 15 2009
SC

In Azerbaijan, the idea of "one nation, two states" is often referred
to: it means that the Turkish people and Azerbaijani people are from
the same roots, parts of one nation, but live in two different states.

During numerous talks with public figures and journalists in Istanbul,
Tert.am’s correspondents tried to find out to what extent this
corresponds to reality.

"This is an idea, which, in fact, only opposition representatives speak
about in Turkey, using it as a ‘trump card’ in their struggle with
the governing parties. When it comes to Armenian-Turkish relations,
they immediately remind everyone that the Azerbaijani people are
our brothers," said one Turkish citizen, who is well aware of the
ups and downs of Turkey’s inner political life: he works with a NGO,
cooperating with international bodies and dealing with Armenian-Turkish
and Turkish-Greek relations.

In fact, he states, even the opposition representatives don’t speak
about "one nation, two states" in that way.

"For ordinary Turkish people, it is something unreal. You can come out
to the streets in Istanbul and ask people, I am sure most of them will
not get the essence of the issue at all, because they have a vague idea
of Azerbaijan and the situation in Azerbaijan," said the NGO worker.

He is convinced that Turkish-Azerbaijani relations are on a good level,
particularly in terms of the economy, but it doesn’t mean that an
understanding of the different issues should be the same.

Tert.am correspondents spoke with a number of journalists, both
Turkish and Armenian, on the same topic over two to three days while
in Istanbul.

As Agos (a Turkish paper) Editor Aris Nalci noted in conversation with
Tert.am, in Turkey, talks on such understandings are not possible,
and that is unequivocal.