Serkan Demirtaş – Hurriyet Daily News
The US puts pressure on Ankara to put the relations back on track with Yerevan as Azerbaijan and Armenia fail to negotiate the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh issue. The ongoing reconciliation process has been blocked by Azerbaijan, which indirectly threatened to stop supplying natural gas to Turkey
The United States is pressing Ankara to move toward rapprochement with Yerevan following the collapse of talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan last month to discuss the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
“The time is right for normalization. Some action to get the process moving, to give [it] momentum would be fine,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Turkish officials July 16 during a visit to Turkey.
Azerbaijan and Armenia had earlier failed to come to an agreement over the contested territory of Nagorno-Karabakh during a June meeting in Kazan, Russia. The U.S. was reportedly infuriated by Baku’s U-turn during the talks.
The Turkish-Armenian reconciliation process has been blocked by Azerbaijan, which indirectly threatened to stop supplying natural gas to Turkey and to give Russia preference as its main energy partner. Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols to normalize relations and to open their border, sealed since the early 1990s, but both countries failed to ratify the accords due to domestic pressure. Turkey said ratification would only be possible after Armenia and Azerbaijan reach an agreement over Nagorno-Karabakh. Hopes for a deal disappeared after Baku rejected such an agreement in Kazan and criticized Armenia’s approach.
A flashpoint of the Caucasus, the region known as Nagorno-Karabakh is a constituent part of Azerbaijan that has been occupied by Armenia since the end of 1994. While internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, the enclave has declared itself an independent republic but is administered as a de facto part of Armenia.
With the U.S. home to a several-million-strong Armenian diaspora pressing the administration to recognize Armenian claims of genocide in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, Washington is seeking the completion of the process between Ankara and Yerevan. The top U.S. diplomat said they understood the domestic difficulties in the ratification of the protocols but hinted there could some other action to keep the momentum alive.
As reported by the Hürriyet Daily News last week, a set of confidence-building measures are planned to this end, starting with direct flights from Yerevan to the eastern province of Van, a destination for many Armenians who wish to visit an ancient Armenian church on Akdamar Island in Lake Van.
According to the Armenian press, a member of the Van Chamber of Commerce, Abdullah Tunçdemir, said the Yerevan-Van flights would begin Sept. 11 if the Van airport could be upgraded to meet international standards. Another planned measure is to open a Turkish Airlines, or THY, office in Yerevan to coordinate Armenians’ flights to the United States via Istanbul.
Such steps will, on the one hand, give a strong signal to Baku that its refusal to deal with Armenia will not stop Turkish-Armenian rapprochement; on the other hand, they will also help relieve growing pressure on the Turkish and American administrations from the Armenian diaspora.
Turkey’s move to begin flights between Van and Yerevan has drawn a reaction from Azerbaijan. “We do not interfere in the affairs of two countries but we still reserve the right to respond in the event of an infringement of the national interests of Azerbaijan,” Elman Abdullayev, the first secretary of the Azerbaijani press service MFA, told the Trend news agency in response to the possible flights.
“Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry is following the developments and will react according to the future scenario,” said Abdullayev.-
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