TURKEY EYES AZERI, ARMENIA MEETING ON KARABAKH
By Alexander Tanas
Reuters
Oct 8, 2009
CHISINAU, Oct 8 (Reuters) – The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia hold
talks in Moldova on Thursday that may bring progress in a years-long
dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh and ease the way for restoring normal
ties between Armenia and Turkey.
Christian Armenia and Muslim Turkey are scheduled to sign an accord
in Zurich on Saturday regularising relations and ending a century
of hostility.
Such an agreement would bolster Turkey’s credentials as a moderniser
in the West, boost the poverty-stricken economy of landlocked Armenia
and improve security in the South Caucasus, a key transit corridor
for oil and gas supplies to the West.
But analysts say much hinges on the outcome of Thursday’s encounter
in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau between Azeri President Ilham
Aliyev and Armenia’s Serzh Sarksyan on the emotive issue of the
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
Chances are slim that NATO member Turkey, an ally of fellow Muslim
Azerbaijan, will open the border with Armenia by year-end unless
there is real progress on the issue, analysts say.
Violence erupted in the mountainous territory, an ethnic Armenian
enclave located within Azerbaijan’s internationally recognised borders,
when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Nagorno-Karabakh declared
independence.
Ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia, drove out Azeri forces
and took control of seven districts of Azerbaijan adjacent to
Nagorno-Karabakh. Some 30,000 people were killed in the war.
The pace has quickened this year in internationally sponsored efforts
to reach a peace deal, but each side faces difficulty in selling a
deal at home.
Neither Aliyev nor Sarksyan will want to risk losing face by appearing
to have made concessions on what is a highly emotive issue.
Sarksyan also has to contend with pressure from a vocal and powerful
Armenian diaspora alert to any sign of weakness.
DOUBTS EXPRESSED
In Ankara, some doubts were expressed in diplomatic circles that the
Zurich ceremony would take place because of the pressure on Sarksyan
as well as opposition within Armenia and to a certain extent Turkey.
Relations between Turkey and Armenia are bedevilled by World War One
mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks. The two powers do not
have diplomatic ties.
The United States — with Russia and France part of the so-called
Minsk group leading negotiations on the Karabakh dispute — will host
Thursday’s talks at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Moldova,
a U.S. embassy spokesman said.
The meeting will take place at the margins of a summit of leaders
of the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) of which
Armenia and Azerbaijan are members.
Most analysts cautioned against expectations of a breakthrough.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with
Azerbaijan, then at war with ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. It
says ties with Armenia can not be normalised until there is progress
in the dispute.
Armenia insists the two issues are separate, but Azerbaijan is
insistent that they are linked. (Additional reporting by Zerin Elci
and Paul de Bendern in Ankara and by Hasmik Lazarian in Yerevan and
Afet Mehtiyeva in Baku) (Writing by Richard Balmforth; Editing by
Louise Ireland)