CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA EXPERT: TURKEY DOESN’T GIVE UP OPPORTUNITY TO PLAY "ITS OWN GAME" IN CAUCASUS
Today
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April 14 2010
Azerbaijan
Interview with political observer and expert on Caucasus and Central
Asia Yuri Sigov.
How do you assess the current state of the Turkey-U.S. relations in
the light of latest developments?
Turkish-American relations are quite smooth and are of partnership
nature, with the exception of the powerful work of the Armenian lobby
on "genocide" and the weakness of the Turkish lobby in the U.S. to
counteract this. The Turks understand that the U.S. needs their
assistance, especially in matters of security in the region and in
the energy sector. Another question is that U.S strategic interests
in the Caucasus are not so significant like that of Turkey, which has
recently been trying to regain some lost political and economic weight.
Turkey sees the United States as a partner profitable in every respect
while not giving up its own initiative and opportunity to play "its
own game" in the Caucasus.
In your opinion, to what degree the United States is likely to
recognize the "Armenian genocide"? Will President Obama do what
Armenians expect him to do on on April 24?
The are still debates regarding the term "genocide" in the U.S. The
Armenian lobby in America is able to competently to influence members
of the White House administration and members of Congress. So, the
solution can be unpleasant for Turkey. But I do not think that the
American president would be interested in maintaining confrontation
over this issue as showed his recent meeting with the Turkish and
Armenian leaders in Washington, where he urged them to cooperate,
rather than continuing squabbles about what happened almost a hundred
years ago.
How do you assess Iran’s effort to contribute to settlement of the
Karabakh conflict?
Today Iran is in a very difficult situation, and any peaceful
activities, including an attempt to act as peacemaker and mediator
in Karabakh conflict resolution, can bring some positive results. In
reality, Tehran has no leverage to resolve this long-running conflict
and is not expected to have one in future. Moreover, Iran, in my
opinion, is not interested in resolving this conflict in favor of
Azerbaijan.
At the same time, Tehran wants Azerbaijan not to assist U.S. in the
event of a sharp aggravation of relations between the two countries.
To achieve this, Tehran put forward some initiatives on Karabakh
problem, a sensitive issue for Azerbaijan as, but is doing very little
in practice.