RAND CORPORATION ANALYST: ARMENIA-TURKEY PROCESS LIKELY TO BE REVIVED AFTER THE NATIONAL ELECTIONS IN TURKEY

Panorama.am
28/04/2010

Stephen Larrabee, Corporate Chair in European Security at the RAND
Corporation, said in an interview to Mediamax that the process to
normalize relations with Turkey until Ankara will revive after the
parliamentary elections in Turkey. At the same time he noted that the
process could revive if Erdogan-led AKP "does well in the elections."

"The process is likely to go into deep freeze but be revived after the
national elections in Turkey if the AKP does well in the elections,"
Stephen Larrabee said, commenting on Armenian President’s statement on
factual suspension of the process to normalize relations with Turkey.

According to the expert, the sides are not going to sit and do
nothing meanwhile.

"Given the current stalemate it will be difficult to achieve much in
the short term. However, the US will keep pushing for normalization,
quietly behind the scenes, because of the important positive benefits
you note that would occur if the process succeeds. The US does not
want to see a formal rupture or collapse of the dialogue and hopes
that at some point – perhaps after the Turkish elections when the
domestic climate in Turkey may be better — the dialogue can be
resumed in earnest. The task now is not to allow the normalization
process to completely collapse", RAND analyst said.

Among the causes as to why Armenia-Turkey process found itself in
a deadlock, Stephen Larrabee mentioned Turkey’s current state of
inner-political affairs and Azerbaijan’s disposition.

"The Erdogan government and the Obama administration underestimated
the degree of the negative reaction in Baku as well as the negative
reaction the move would provoke among the opposition parties in
Turkey, who sought to exploit the issue politically. Erdogan’s
hastily-arranged trip to Baku last May and his statement to the
Azeri parliament regarding the linkage between the normalization
of Turkish-Armenian relations and a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement
should be seen against this background", American analyst stated,
actually hinting that Erdogan’s government gave in to the pressure of
nationalists not to lose the chance of winning the upcoming elections.

Commenting on the tough statements of Azerbaijani representatives
addressed to the USA, Stephen Larrabee stated: "I am not sure what
Baku wants other than to express its irritation that the US favors
decoupling the Turkish-Armenian normalization process from a settlement
of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict".