To Take Serious Positions in the South Caucasus, Turkey should Settle Relations with Armenia: Turkish Analyst
“Today Turkey has more actual issues to solve, rather than Armenia-Turkey relations,” Burcu Gultekin Punsmann, political analyst, senior researcher of Ankara Policy Center, told at the press-conference organized by Region Research Center, reflecting to a new warming phase of Russia-Turkey relations.
Gultekin Punsmann stated that she wants to believe that warmth between Ankara and Moscow will be lasting. In her opinion, the two states felt the price of failure of relations. “Economic losses are incomparable with the strategic value, that the two countries have for each other. Bilateral Russia-Turkey relations are the future of our region. However, it’s necessary to understand how such an unexpected development was recorded between Russia and Turkey, i.e. it happened in Syria. Thus, Turkey and Russia in Syria should lay on a firm ground, which would save lives and would allow to respectively refer to the will of Syrian people,” Turkish political scientist said.
The analyst is of the opinion that Russia-Turkey crisis had a negative influence on the South Caucasus, including NK conflict dynamics. “If I observe the influence of the crisis on the South Caucasus from Turkish perspective, against the background of that crisis Turkey-Azerbaijan relations seemed more valuable. Turkey doesn’t have direct possibilities to influence over NK conflict zone dynamics, and in particular, in case of resumption of military operations. I’d say that Russian anti-Turkish propaganda negatively impacted on Armenian public opinion. The fact, that fear of Armenians from Turkish people is increasing, decreases political possibilities,” Burcu Gultekin Punsmann said.
She hopes, that Turkey’s new policy in the Caucasus will be not passive, not aggressive, but rather active.
“For two decades have I supported settlement of Armenia-Turkey relations. Yes, let me repeat once again that Turkey should actively settle its relations with Armenia, to assume new positions in the South Caucasus,” she said. However, in her words, Turkey has more actual issues demanding solution.
The analyst is sure, that as a result of a successful ending of the attempted coup the perspective for opening Armenia-Turkey border would be totally removed. “I don’t think that the attempted coup has something in common with strengthening of Erdogan’s positions. Didn’t you notice that Turkish SOCAR has changed after the attempted coup and former director was arrested?” Turkish analyst hinted.
To the question what deploying of Turkish military bases in Azerbaijan is explained by, the analyst replied, “Not so long ago we were fundamentally touching upon development of Turkish military bases in Qatar, and probably, in Somali. These initiatives are in the context of fight against terror. Turkey and Azerbaijan, as you know, have close military cooperation in the field of security. However, Russia remains Azerbaijan’s number one partner in this field.”
Araks Martirosyan
