TURKISH PRESIDENT TO MEET HIS AZERI, ARMENIAN COUNTERPARTS IN PRAGUE
Hurriyet
May 6 2009
Turkey
ISTANBUL – Turkish President Abdullah Gul will meet separately his
Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts on the sidelines of a European
summit in the Czech capital of Prague on Thursday, diplomats said.
Gul will meet Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan in Prague, where the leaders are scheduled
to attend an Eastern Partnership summit, diplomats told the Anatolian
Agency.
The meetings come as diplomatic traffic intensifies in efforts aimed
at solving long-standing disputes in the region.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will also meet Aliyev in the
capital Baku on May 13 and Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in
the Black Sea resort of Sochi on May 16.
Turkey and Armenia, under Switzerland’s mediation, agreed last month
on a "road map" deal for U.S.-backed talks that could lead to the
normalizing of ties and the opening of their border.
Ankara cut diplomatic links with Yerevan and closed the border in
a show of support to Azerbaijan in 1993 after 20 percent of its
territory was invaded by Armenia in the disputed region — a frozen
conflict legacy of the Soviet Union known as Nagorno-Karabakh.
Newly appointed Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Araz
Azimov, deputy foreign minister of Azerbaijan, which has been disturbed
by the Ankara-Yerevan thaw, on Monday. Davutoglu met Azimov to discuss
Azeri concerns over the roadmap, officials said.
Baku, which has strong cultural and historic ties with Turkey, says
opening the border before the withdrawal of Armenian troops from
the country’s occupied territories would run counter to its national
interests. Some media reports suggested that Azerbaijan, a supplier
of oil and gas to Europe, might even halt the sale of natural gas
to Turkey.
CLINTON MEETS AZERI, ARMENIAN COUNTERPARTS U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton also met separately early Tuesday with her counterparts
from Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks on energy security and the
disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Clinton met with Armenia’s Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian, and
held talks later in the day with Azerbaijan’s lead diplomat Elmar
Mammadyarov.
During his meeting with Clinton, Nalbandian thanked the U.S. State
Department for "all constant efforts to help to support the
normalization process with Turkey and peaceful settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict".
The top U.S. diplomat’s meetings aim at laying the groundwork for
the meeting between Aliyev and Sargsyan in Prague.
The United States and Russia, along with France, are co-chairs of the
Minsk Group, which is seeking to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
