RUSSIA AND TURKEY STAGING REVOLUTION IN THE CAUCASUS

While Turkish and Russian media wrote about the "historic" results of Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev's visit to Turkey, the Armenian press gleamed with headlines like "Long-term political cooperation between Russia and Turkey impossible", "Too many differences between Russia and Turkey", "Russia to impede Turkey's strengthening in the South Caucasus" etc.

The Azg newspaper acknowledged that "the Armenian side is very sensitive to any information about Russo-Turkish relations". But why? What is so bad about Yerevan's strategic partner establishing good relations with a country Armenia needs to open its border with?

Even a superficial analysis of statements made by Russian and Turkish leaders in Ankara shows that there are reasons for Yerevan's annoyance - not only that Russia and Turkey have agreed to increase their trade to $100 billion in five years, cancelled visa requirements for visits of fewer than 30 days, signed an agreement on the construction of a $20 billion nuclear power station in Turkey and opened the way for calculations in the national currencies.

Armenia is annoyed over the likelihood of such cooperation making Russia and Turkey more active players in the political arena, including the South Caucasus, and making them interested in changing the status quo.

"We will definitely change the Caucasus. We will implement a psychological revolution in the Caucasus. The success of this policy requires, first of all, the confidence of those implementing it. Then we will need to convince others. We believe in it," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, while commenting on the Russian president's visit to Ankara. 

Armenia, which still believes in its own revolution, does not want to be among "others". And the essence of its plans is to drag everything out until the world puts up with Armenian whims such as territorial claims on almost all its neighbours.

At the same time, Yerevan is still trying to ignore what has always been said by Azerbaijan, has recently been noticed by the rest of the world and is gaining acceptance by Armenia proper. "Logically, from a political standpoint, the Qarabag issue should be top priority after the freezing of the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement process. But the process of normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations and the Upper Qarabag conflict are parts of one and the same issue and without the solution of the latter it will be impossible to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey," said Gagik Arutyunyan,  director of the Noravank foundation.

Meanwhile, Russia intends to proceed from this logic. Dmitriy Medvedev said, following talks with Abdulla Gul, that Russia will continue to promote the Upper Qarabag peace process, stressing that Moscow would also consult Turkey on the issue.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan went even further by saying, in a joint news conference with Dmitriy Medvedev, that if the OSCE Minsk Group continues to work as hard to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, Turkey may consider joining the negotiating process too. "Our mission now is to help Azerbaijan and Armenia reach a point which can be seen as a start of a peace process. We, for our part, will do our best for the process to continue," the prime minister said.

Most analysts, however, are rather sceptical of the possibility of Turkish participation in the OSCE Minsk Group. But developments show that a greater role for Ankara in the establishment of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, albeit not in the Minsk Group format, is inevitable.

Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov has revealed some details of a possible role for Turkey in a peace settlement. "At the first stage Azerbaijan could propose the return of five occupied districts, the vacating and return of the Lacin road and the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border. But this is possible only if a schedule is established for the next stage, for the return of other territories, i.e. the northern part of Lacin and Kalbacar," APA quoted the deputy minister as saying.

In any case, the meeting of the Russian and Turkish presidents may give impetus to a settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Joint efforts by Turkey and Russia may also encourage the countries co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group, namely the USA, which will certainly not want the initiative to slip through its fingers.