There is the political will for strategic partnership between Baku and Ankara, a Turkish academic has said.
There is no need to talk about the importance these two states attach to one another, the director of the Turkish Foreign Ministry's Strategic Research Centre, Bulent Aras, said in Baku today.
He was speaking at a ceremony to mark the signing of a memorandum on cooperation between his centre and the Azerbaijani President's Strategic Research Centre.
Bulent Aras said there were plenty of mutually beneficial issues and a common approach to different problems.
“Modern processes in the world make us share a common position,” Aras said.
Turkey’s position on South Caucasus
“Turkey approaches its policy in the South Caucasus and the development of ties with other countries of this region in terms of its partnership with Azerbaijan,” Aras said.
He said that Turkey had stepped up diplomatic efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict during its membership of the UN Security Council.
Aras said this issue was regularly put on the agenda for negotiations with Iran and Russia.
“There is the Minsk Group [of the OSCE] and Prime Minister Erdogan periodically urges the co-chairs to step up their work," he said.
Aras believes that Azerbaijan and Armenia must settle the Karabakh conflict peacefully and that there is an opportunity to settle this problem diplomatically.
Commenting on Saturday's meeting of the presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia in Sochi, Aras said that a small step had been taken towards security.
Problem of 24 April
One of the common positions of Azerbaijan and Turkey is their approach to the "so-called Armenian genocide", Aras said.
The mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16 are commemorated as genocide by Armenians on 24 April.
"Turkey proposed the creation of a commission with Armenian historians in order to study events. However, the opposite side believes that this issue is not to be studied and we must accept their accusations without any discussions. No-one in history has ever accepted anything without discussion,” Aras said.
He said that Azerbaijani experts would assist Turkey on this.
Emil Guliyev
News.Az
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