DAVUTOGLU IN BAKU FOR TALKS ON ARMENIA TIES
Today’s Zaman
April 20 2010
Turkey
Relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and a territorial dispute
between the two which complicates Armenia and Turkey’s efforts to
normalize their relations were at the heart of Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu’s talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Monday.
"Through this visit, we will be reinforcing [Ambassador Feridun]
Sinirlioglu’s earlier talks in Baku. There has been an acceleration
regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute recently, and this momentum has
been reflected on the international stage. We held multidimensional
talks in Washington. I will explain [to Aliyev] what happened in
Washington word for word," Davutoglu said on Monday, while speaking to
a group of journalists on board a plane en route to Baku from Ankara.
The minister had already announced that he planned to visit Baku on
Monday while speaking at a press conference at the Turkish Embassy
in Washington on Thursday. Davutoglu, who accompanied Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan to a nuclear security summit in the US capital
last Monday and Tuesday, stayed in Washington after Erdogan’s departure
and had talks with senior US officials.
Davutoglu’s visit is apparently aimed at highlighting Ankara’s
determination to keep Baku informed regarding every step of Turkey’s
normalization process with Armenia.
The minister’s remarks while traveling to Baku referred to the fact
that only days before his talks with Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan
and US President Barack Obama and before Davutoglu’s meeting with
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian in Washington, Erdogan
sent Sinirlioglu, a Foreign Ministry undersecretary, on successive
visits first to Yerevan and then to Baku as his special envoy.
"We are testing the waters in every country in the Caucasus. Now
everybody has the conviction that this problem [the Nagorno-Karabakh
dispute] should be resolved," Davutoglu went on to say.
On Thursday in Yerevan, the day when Davutoglu announced his Baku
visit, the official website of Armenian President Sarksyan announced
that he will pay a short working visit to Moscow on April 20, today,
and hold talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The latter
had a bilateral meeting with Erdogan while in Washington.
Russia, along with France and the United States, is one the three
co-chairs of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has striven to resolve the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a territorial conflict between Armenia
and Azerbaijan.
"Russia’s contributions are very important and it has been making a
significant contribution," Davutoglu said, recalling that Medvedev
will pay an official visit to Turkey next month.
Referring to Erdogan’s meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy
earlier this month as well as his meetings with Obama and Medvedev,
namely the heads of states of the three co-chairs of the Minsk process,
Davutoglu added, "A picture has emerged; we will share this picture
with the Azerbaijani authorities."
In Ankara, while addressing a parliamentary group meeting of his
ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) on Monday, Erdogan
explained that during his talks with Sarksyan, "while emphasizing
Turkey’s sincerity on the point of implementing the protocols and
normalizing relations with Armenia," he also told him that "Armenia
should show the same sincerity as well."
"Additionally, we underlined the fact that relations between Armenia
and Azerbaijan and reaching a resolution over rayons [administrative
units greater than a district but smaller than a province which
surround the Nagorno-Karabakh region] will be determining factors in
implementing the protocols," Erdogan added.
Davutoglu, meanwhile, cautioned that imposing deadlines regarding the
Nagorno-Karabakh resolution process was not appropriate: "The process
should run its natural course. Changing the status quo is not easy."