"No progress in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict due to complicated situation in Caucasus"

Saturday, 20 March 2010 10:36

“If there was even a small progress in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the situation in Caucasus wouldn’t be so complicated” - told APA’s Washington correspondent Bulent Aliriza, Senior Research Associate and Director of the Turkey Project at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC based think tank.

Analyst reminded that, In October 2009 US State Secretary Hillary Clinton had played a prominent role at a ceremony in Zurich where Turkey and Armenia finalized prolonged negotiations by signing protocols relating to the establishment of full diplomatic relations and the reopening of their common border.
In his tern, Turkish Prime minister Tayyib Erdogan made it clear soon after this event that the protocols would not be ratified by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) until Armenia began the process of withdrawal from occupied Azeri territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.

“As there has been little tangible progress in Azeri-Armenian talks, the TGNA has not moved on the protocols. For its part, the Armenian government has continued to argue that the two issues are independent of each other, declared that the Armenian Parliament will not ratify the protocols until after Turkish ratification and recently sought and received parliamentary authorization to withdraw its signature from the protocols” -Mr. Aliriza added.

Speaking about the “Genocide Vote” in Congress on March 4, 2010, analyst stressed that, even as the House Foreign Affairs Committee was preparing to vote, the administration continued to stress the importance of Turkish Parliament approval of the protocols:

According to the analyst, on top of all his other domestic and international problems, US president Barak Obama now needs to find a way to navigate between the competing and contradictory claims of the Armenian Diaspora in the US and the Armenian government which want him to live up to his word on the genocide issue and the Turkish government which is calling on him to act in accordance with America’s geopolitical interests.

“Attention now shifts from Congress to what Obama will choose to say on April 24” – Mr. Aliriza said finalizing his thoughts.