Interview with Steve Larrabee, senior analyst and Distinguished Chair in European Security at the Washington DC based think tank RAND Organization
- What are your views regarding US President Barack Obama’s policy of blaming Turks but still avoiding to use the word "genocide" with regards the events of 1915. And how do you see the next steps of Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan?
- President Obama’s failure to use the word “genocide,” while not totally unexpected will be a big disappointment to the Armenians and is likely to reinforce the current stalemate in the normalization process between Turkey and Armenia. Turkey will continue to insist that the normalization process with Armenia cannot be fully implemented without visible progress toward a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Armenia, however, is unlikely to make serious concessions on Nagorno-Karabakh in the short-term. Faced with a divisive internal battle over constitutional reform and an increasingly polarized political environment at home, Erdogan is unlikely to expend significant energy or political capital on pushing the normalization of relations with Armenia, especially with national elections looming on the horizon. As a result, the process of normalization between Turkey and Armenia is likely to lose momentum but not completely collapse. Behind the scenes the two sides are likely to seek to prevent a total collapse of the bilateral dialogue on normalization of relations in the hope that the dialogue can be revived in a serious way after the Turkish national elections.
- How do you see the final result of the Turkey-Armenia rapprochement that is supported by US?
- The normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia would have important benefits for stability in the Southern Caucasus. It would enable Armenia to reduce its dependence on Russia and Iran and allow it to strengthen its ties to the West. However, the process of normalization of relations between Ankara and Yerevan must take into consideration the legitimate security interests of Azerbaijan and should be complemented by an intensified effort by the United States and its European allies to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.
- Coming to the US-Azerbaijani relations, what is the influence of the recent events on them?
- In this regard, it would have been better if President Aliyev had been invited to the nuclear summit in Washington. This would have provided an opportunity for President Obama to talk to all three major actors with major stakes in the dialogue and would have avoided the negative impact on U.S.-Azerbaijani relations which arose because of Azerbaijan’s exclusion from the summit. While continuing to support the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia, in the aftermath of the nuclear summit, the Obama administration should intensify efforts to patch up relations with Azerbaijan and resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
APA
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