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Turkish Delegation To Visit Armenia For Caucasus Talks

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  • Turkish Delegation To Visit Armenia For Caucasus Talks

    TURKISH DELEGATION TO VISIT ARMENIA FOR CAUCASUS TALKS

    Panorama.am
    13:11 01/09/2008

    A Turkish Foreign Ministry delegation will visit Yerevan this week
    to discuss a proposed platform for the troubled Caucasus, Turkish
    Foreign Minister Ali Babacan announced yesterday.

    Turkish "Zaman" reports that Babacan, speaking at a joint press
    conference with his Georgian counterpart, Eka Tkeshelashvili in
    Ä°stanbul, said the delegation will present Turkish ideas concerning
    the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform, proposed by Turkey as
    a mechanism to develop conflict resolution methods among the Caucasus
    ountries. The proposed platform is planned to be made up of Turkey,
    Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

    "We will present our views concerning the Caucasus platform to our
    counterparts in Yerevan," Babacan said.

    The question of how to establish contact between the estranged
    neighbors Turkey and Armenia is just one of the obstacles that the
    proposed Caucasus platform faces.

    According to Turkish media, Azerbaijan is unlikely to warm to any
    sort of cooperation or contact with Armenia due to the continued
    occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh. Georgia, for its part, refuses any
    contact with Russia unless Russian forces withdraw from Georgia.

    Tkeshelashvili reiterated in Ä°stanbul that what Russia must do now is
    to withdraw from Georgian territory and fully implement a cease-fire
    agreement. After that Georgia can begin assessing proposals for
    contacts with Russia in a multilateral setting, she said. Russia,
    she said, should see that it cannot act the way it used to in the past.

    Turkish analysts warn that contacts with Armenia could offend
    Azerbaijan, Turkey's regional ally which also shares close ethnic
    and linguistic ties. Babacan assured his Azerbaijani counterpart,
    Elmar Mammadyarov, on Friday that Turkey was a strategic partner of
    Azerbaijan in all areas but signs of tension were visible during the
    one-day visit. The two ministers gave a very brief press statement
    after their talks and Mammadyarov said before meeting Babacan that his
    country would consider "profitability" concerning a Russian proposal to
    buy Azerbaijani oil, a move that would undermine a US-backed pipeline
    to transfer Caspian oil to Europe via Turkey.

    Turkish government's apparent plans to initiate dialogue with
    Armenia are receiving criticism at home as well. Main opposition
    Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal told reporters
    yesterday that the government was trying to reverse the official
    policy without Armenia meeting any of the conditions requested by
    Turkey for normalization of ties.

    He warned against alienating Azerbaijan, saying this country is of
    vital importance for Turkey in many respects. "I want the government
    to refrain from taking any step that would harm Azerbaijan," he said
    and added that he would rather go to Baku than to Yerevan to watch
    the World Cup game.

    However, analysts say with so many issues of dispute among the five
    countries, the idea to bring them around the same table to discuss
    disputes could be mere wishful thinking. But contacts have been
    intense since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the
    proposal. Erdogan has visited Moscow, Tbilisi and Baku to discuss
    the proposal. The Azerbaijani foreign minister had talks in Ankara
    on Friday and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to
    arrive in Ä°stanbul today for talks on Tuesday.

    --Boundary_(ID_RFK2CxBQh8IQTH2e46pzcg)--
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