TURKEY’S PRESIDENT EXPECTS TALKS TO BE STEPPED UP ON ARMENIAN WITHDRAWAL FROM AZERBAIJAN

news.AZ
Nov 5 2009
Azerbaijan

Abdullah Gul Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, has said that
discussions on Armenia’s withdrawal from the territory it occupies
in Azerbaijan will be intensified.

"There is no doubt Azerbaijan’s occupied lands belong to Azerbaijan,"
Gul said in a lecture at the inauguration of a new building of the
International Strategic Research Centre in Ankara.

Gul said he believes that discussions on Armenian withdrawal from
Azerbaijan will be stepped up, as this will help solve many problems
in the region.

The Turkish president said that developments in Georgia showed once
more that "frozen" conflicts in this region can escalate into war at
any moment.

He said there would be disaster without the Montreux Convention,
which severely restricts the passage of military vessels through the
Bosporus and Dardanelles, and gives Turkey control over the straits.

Elsewhere in his lecture, the Turkish president denied that Turkey
has changed direction in its foreign policy.

"Some are questioning where Turkey is heading to, which suggests
Turkey is confused and drifting with the waves in the middle of the
sea. This is not the case. Turkey knows what it has been doing,"
Hurriyet Daily News reported the president as saying.

"Turkey is going in every direction, from north to south and from
east to west," he said