The West provides Turkey an opportunity through Armenia: Turkish analyst
“Armenia’s authorities appear with the statements agreed with the West,” Cengiz Aktar, Turkish political analyst, publicist, told 168.am, reflecting to creation of Turkey-Russia-Azerbaijan unity and the policy pursued by the Armenian side these days.
Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, stated at the joint press conference with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, that they have discussed the issue of establishing Turkey-Russia-Azerbaijan trio, as well as NK conflict settlement.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated in Moscow that Karabakh conflict settlement requires resumption of negotiations in near future. “Tension coil is also a very important issue in relations of Azerbaijan and Armenia. I think in near future it’s necessary to resume negotiations. I consider Russia may play its crucial role here,” Erdogan said.
Cengiz Aktar said talks on launching such format always activate, when Azerbaijan intends to exert pressure over the Armenian side to extract concessions from it regarding NK conflict settlement. He considers it’s impossible to surely insist that such trio will develop, as basically, it’s an intention of one side on account of Russia-Turkey active relations.
“I’ve repeatedly stated that Turkey does this due to dependency on Azerbaijan. Currently the West also pushes Turkey to such formats, in particular, the EU, relations of Turkey with which are worsening day by day, as European officials call on Turkey to respect the conclusion by the Venice Commission, not to sharpen relations with several EU members due to instigating statements, as well as the USA, which initiated works toward development of the Kurdish state. Erdogan intends to show Europe that it has an alternative.
However, it’s obvious that this format doesn’t so interest Moscow, which recently is silent about this new format, which allows supposing that during Putin-Erdogan meeting traditional talks have been launched on that format,” Cengiz Aktar said.
According to the latter these days rather interesting statements are heard from the Armenian side directed to neutralization of possible threats of this initiative and solution of other issues.
“Armenia’s authorities touch upon restoration of diplomatic ties with Turkey on the level of ministers, the president, accepting even the fact that Turkey doesn’t ratify Armenia-Turkey records.
Armenia’s authorities openly call on Turkey to restore relations without preconditions. There is an impression that this is an agreed approach with the West, by which the latter through Armenia provides Turkey the opportunity to implement a stabilizing step and change its own image in the region. Obviously, today the sides aren’t ready for that, however, this will become a positive impulse for Armenia-Turkey relations on account of uncompromising position and preconditions of the sides.
I’m not sure that Turkey’s authorities will positively reflect to these statements, however, I consider they will be taken into account for the future. I agree that Turkey exclusively should be led by its own interests eliminating the precondition of NK conflict resolution necessity on the way to Armenia-Turkey relations settlement.
However, obviously, against the background of Turkey-West tension the West provides Turkey the opportunity through Armenia, from which, in all likelihood the Turkish authorities won’t make use of,” Aktar said.
It should be noted that President Serzh Sargsyan said in an interview with the Spanish EFE news agency,
“We are confident that Turkey will not ratify the documents since it is known for quite a long time that the Turks very clearly and loudly expressed their opinion: today they link the Armenian-Turkish relations with the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. They propose preconditions to us. We don’t announce the Genocide recognition by Turkey as a precondition, we ourselves are not ready to accept any precondition by Turks. In the 21st century the states must have relations. We say let’s establish diplomatic relations, then we will discuss every issue related to the bilateral relations.”
By Araks Martirosyan
