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BAKU: Turkish-Armenian Rapprochement Over - Azerbaijani Expert

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  • BAKU: Turkish-Armenian Rapprochement Over - Azerbaijani Expert

    TURKISH-ARMENIAN RAPPROCHEMENT OVER - AZERBAIJANI EXPERT

    news.az
    Feb 11 2010
    Azerbaijan

    Rovshan Ibrahimov News.Az interviews Azerbaijani political scientist
    Rovshan Ibrahimov.

    Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said yesterday he was about to send
    the Turkish-Armenian protocols on normalizing relations to parliament.

    On the other hand, the Turkish side is a long way from ratification.

    How would you comment on the situation?

    This is propaganda by Armenia. The leadership of the country
    understands that the situation has reached a climax when Armenia
    will be blamed for the failure to ratify the protocols, especially
    after the decision of the Constitutional Court. Yet, it is clear
    that Turkey has used the Armenian Constitutional Court ruling to
    take a step back and not ratify the protocols, as the situation has
    changed since the time of their signing. By sending the protocols
    for ratification to parliament, the Armenian president wants to show
    that they have the will and that the failure is, therefore, Turkey's
    fault. This is logical. But there is no guarantee that the Armenian
    parliament will ratify these protocols.

    What is the fate of the negotiation process?

    I think the process has ended. Everything has been frozen. The
    thing is that Turkey also understood that it would be better to keep
    everything unchanged than to lose ties with Azerbaijan for something
    unknown. This process is gradually being reducing to nought and these
    protocols will not come into force.

    While visiting Great Britain, Serzh Sargsyan said that the resolution
    of relations between Armenia and Turkey may give an impetus to the
    Karabakh settlement process. Is this opinion justified?

    It is like putting the cart before the horse. By doing so he wants
    to show that Armenia is constructive while its neighbours, Turkey and
    Azerbaijan, and destructive. By this statement Sargsyan wants to say
    "open the border and then we will think of how to settle the Karabakh
    conflict". Though, again we see that the chain of logic is broken. The
    Karabakh issue must be settled first and then the border opening is
    possible. Again, the opening of the border with Turkey will be a
    window letting in air to Armenia, as President Aliyev has already
    said. But this will again be breathing through a mask. It means
    that even if the border with Turkey opens, Armenia will get only a
    temporary reprieve. Meanwhile, our long strategy to isolate Armenia
    from all regional programs could suffer serious damage. Therefore,
    Azerbaijan insisted that Turkey take a realistic approach to things
    and understand its real priorities. Turkey has already realized this.

    How do you assess Turkey's ability to influence the Karabakh
    settlement?

    Their ability is minimal. Turkey earlier thought that if it developed
    relations with Armenia, Armenia would be tied to it for economic and
    other reasons which would give levers of pressure on Yerevan to settle
    the Karabakh problem. Later Turkey understood that the Karabakh issue
    cannot be settled by Armenia and its solution lies in Russia's hands.

    Therefore, Turkey tried two approaches. In the first Turkey tried to
    persuade the United States to put pressure on Russia to change the
    situation. But the United States does not consider it appropriate at
    the current stage. It's not in the US national interest. Turkey's
    second approach was to reach agreement with Russia. But then Putin
    said openly that the opening of the border and resolution of the
    Karabakh conflict are two different issues that cannot be discussed
    in a single package. Therefore, Turkey realized that it has no levers
    to settle the liberation of the five districts around Nagorno-Karabakh.

    In this case, we see that Turkey has taken a step back in order not
    to spoil relations with Azerbaijan.

    President Aliyev said recently that if Azerbaijan resumes military
    action to liberate Nagorno-Karabakh, then this must be considered an
    internal affair of Azerbaijan. Does this correspond with us holding
    negotiations with Armenia, rather than Karabakh?

    Here, we should single out two points. The thing is that Article 51
    of the UN Charter defines the right of a country to self-defence in
    case of occupation. This is part of international law. In this case
    we have four resolutions of the UN Security Council regarding the
    occupation which have not been fulfilled by the Armenians. They say
    openly that the occupation was conducted by Armenian armed forces, not
    the "liberation forces of Karabakh". That is, Armenia is recognized
    as a party to the conflict. This is about international law. Thus,
    Azerbaijan preserved the right to liberate its lands and there are
    no time restrictions on the restoration of its territorial integrity.

    On the other hand, as for the speech of President Aliyev that the
    liberation must be considered Azerbaijan's internal affair, in this
    case there is the well-known regulation that Karabakh Armenians, who
    are Azerbaijani citizens, are under occupation. And these citizens must
    be freed as state order is restored to these territories. Thus, these
    will be not hostilities but the restoration of order by the Interior
    Troops. This does not fall under Article 51 of the UN Charter. This
    is the natural right of any state to restore order in its territory,
    especially when the occupied lands are recognized as part of Azerbaijan
    by all countries.

    May this statement by the president lead to Armenia distancing
    itself from the negotiations and telling us to negotiate directly
    with Karabakh?

    Armenia has itself brought the resolution to the international
    level in order to hamper the resolution of the Karabakh conflict
    as an internal conflict of Azerbaijan. In this case Azerbaijan may
    act as Russia did in Chechnya, saying "this is my business and I am
    restoring order in my territory". Armenia has brought the conflict to
    the international level itself. Armenia has also never said that it
    is a party to the conflict. It has just said that it represents the
    interests of Nagorno-Karabakh, because the latter is not a recognized
    party and is unable to hold negotiations with Azerbaijan.
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