Azerbaijan's concern at the prospect of the border between its old foe Armenia and Turkey being reopened resulted in Azerbaijan's representation by a five-member delegation led by Hidayat Orujov, chief of the State Committee for Religious Communities, NTV reported yesterday, noting that this level of participation had been confirmed by Azerbaijani officials. Delivering an extremely brief statement in front of the cameras, Orujov just said that the meeting in Istanbul was important for Baku.
As of March 27 Aliyev's name was among those leaders who had already confirmed to Ankara their participation in the forum, Turkish diplomatic sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Today's Zaman at the time.
As of yesterday, the same diplomatic sources told Today's Zaman that they hadn't received any official information from Baku regarding Aliyev's change of mind and absence at the meeting.
With growing signs of a thaw in relations between Turkey and Armenia after a century of hostility, the chances of Ankara opening the border it closed in 1993 have significantly improved. Turkey's closure of the 268-kilometer-long border had been in solidarity with Azerbaijan, which was fighting Armenian-backed separatists over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region -- a festering conflict that remains unresolved.
Turkey, Baku's principal ally in the frozen conflict, has no diplomatic relations with Armenia and a relationship haunted by the killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I. But both say they are close to a breakthrough on "normalizing relations," which could lead to the opening of the border. Such a step would have major significance for Turkey's role as a regional power, for its European Union membership bid and for energy flows from the Caspian Sea to Europe.
The Wall Street Journal said last Thursday that Turkey and Armenia could unveil an agreement on opening the border and normalizing relations as early as April 16, days before April 24, which is marked by Armenians as "genocide" commemoration day. But President Abdullah Gul, speaking to reporters before departing for Germany to attend the NATO summit there, said such reports were "not accurate."
Following the WSJ article, Azerbaijan's Apa news agency said on Friday that Aliyev had decided not to attend the Istanbul gathering of world leaders, including US President Barack Obama.
In Baku, politicians, including those from opposition parties, displayed a strong reaction to the speculation occupying the Azerbaijani political agenda that Turkey will open its border with Armenia.
Azerbaijani Parliament Speaker Oktay Esedov, New Azerbaijan Party deputy Melehat Ibrahimkizi, known for being sympathetic towards Turkey; independent deputy Ganire Pasayeva and head of the Turkish Friendship Commission Nizami Ceferov were among them.
One of the harshest reactions came from Azerbaijan Public Front Chairman K
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