By Victoria Panfilova, an NG observer exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has made a two-day visit to Turkey. There is no point in describing the official part of the visit, details of the grand reception Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan organized for the Azerbaijani leader and his wife. Those interested may satisfy their curiosity through Internet searches. It could not be any different than according to Heydar Aliyev’s precept “Two states – one nation”. We will refer to what was missed from the foreground.
Actually, the visit of Ilham Aliyev was not as simple as it may seem. Mediators of the OSCE Minsk Group overseeing the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations, visited Baku and Yerevan last week and met the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia. They announced that the leaders agreed to meet. Such talks may happen in late November.
Commentaries of the world society, specialists of conflicts and diplomatic experts show that the current state of negotiations is not satisfactory. The expression of understanding that Aliyev and Sargsyan stated were aimed at simultaneous electoral campaigns, which cramped the space for maneuvers. Leaders need to demonstrate firmness and inviolability of positions to voters. The presidents understand that the world is tired of waiting and it is time to do something real to settle the conflict, find compromises, stop imitating the negotiation process.
In such a complicated atmosphere, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced the readiness of Ankara to renew the process of normalizing relations with Yerevan, for which a message of Switzerland was composed. The latter has become the mediator in the Armenian-Turkish talks. Switzerland will chair the OSCE in 2014. Turkey believes that Swiss diplomats must convince Armenia to withdraw from at least 5 out of 7 Azerbaijani districts around Nagorno-Karabakh. In this case, Baku would not object Turkey’s opening the Turkish-Armenian border, closed by Ankara during the Karabakh war as a sign of solidarity with Azerbaijan. Restoration of the Gyumri (Armenia) – Kars (turkey) Railway, not to mention the roads, would allow Turkey to parry any Western accusations of stalemate in normalization of relations with Armenia.
Progress on the Turkish-Armenian side was evident from the publication of the Zaman paper. It wrote about contracts of Turkish and Swiss diplomats and hinted that Armenia was ready to leave the five districts. Yerevan did not confirm such plans. But existence of the idea itself was not even denied. It is a matter of price.
It is common knowledge that Armenia was ready to withdraw from 5 out of 7 districts called ‘the security line of Nagorno-Karabakh’, and demanded recognition of sovereignty of the self-proclaimed republic in exchange some time ago. That was absolutely unacceptable for Azerbaijan. Whether the formula has changed today is unclear. But changes in the formula cannot be ruled out, judging by the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia saying that the meeting would only be useful if it brings practical changes in the settlement process.
Declarations of Davutoglu and publications of Zaman about activation of Turkish forces that call Ankara the regional leader in normalization of relations with Yerevan and believe that it cares too much about Baku and its interests only contribute to the complex background of the upcoming meeting of Aliyev and Sargsyan. They insist that Turkey can and must maintain the level of strategic alliance with Azerbaijan, but the latter has to show understanding of any positive trends in Turkish-Armenian relations. Clearly, Aliyev needed convincement that his best ally is trustworthy or at least ready for changes in the Ankara-Yerevan axis.
The Azerbaijani left Turkey satisfied. Abdullah Gul and Recep Tayyip Erdogan assured that the firm position of Turkey in relations with Armenia will not change until the problem of occupied territories and Nagorno-Karabakh will be solved in the interest of Azerbaijan.
