A NEW PLAN? TURKISH PM MAY HAVE BRIEFED BAKU ON NEW KARABAKH PLAN
168 Zham
May 18 2010
Armenia
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan left for Baku on 17 May,
where he according to Turkish press reports, he presented a new plan
of the Karabakh settlement to the Azerbaijani authorities.
In particular, according to the Turkish Hurriyet paper, Erdogan
introduced to [Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev a plan, whereby
Armenia will vacate two out of the seven liberated districts,
Kalbacar and Fuzuli, and in exchange Azerbaijan will open its border
with Armenias. According to Turkish sources, this plan was developed
at Erdogans’s meetings with the Armenian and the US presidents in
Washington and with the Russian president in Ankara.
Whether Erdogan did introduce this plan to Aliyev or not – no official
statement was made on this as of 17 May. After the meeting with
Aliyev it was only said that "satisfaction was voiced in connection
with successful development of friendly and brotherly ties between
Azerbaijan and Turkey".
It is obvious that the word is about "3+2+2" or "2+3+2" options of
return of librated territories. That is – it turns out that Armenia
consented to return of at least two districts, and Erdogan went to
Baku to convince Aliyev of that. It is interesting that Armenia did not
anyhow officially deny this report and the fact of existence of such a
plan. Meanwhile, its existence is demonstrated also by the fact that
as early as last week [10-17 May] Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev
announced that Russia will continue to "push forward" the process of
settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict and will be consulting
with Turkey on the matter from now on. That is, it is possible that
the plan which Erdogan took to Baku is a result of such a consultation.