WILL ANKARA CROSS THE BORDER?

In early April, the attention of the Azerbaijani, Turkish and Armenian public was focused on reports on the possible opening of the border between Armenia and Turkey. Things reached such a point that protests began in Azerbaijan and Turkey against Ankara's actions aimed at rapprochement with Yerevan which has occupied 20 per cent of Azerbaijani territory.

Many analysts and media assessed the refusal of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to take in the representative international conference "Alliance of Civilizations" in Istanbul on 3 April as a sign of protest. This fact drew attention also because this conference was a chance to discuss problems of the region with the new US president, Barack Obama, who was present at the forum.

Indeed, Ilham Aliyev was invited to this conference insistently. When the efforts of Abdullah Gul and Erdogan proved ineffective, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton phoned Baku, saying that she would be very grateful for a bilateral meeting between the presidents of Azerbaijan and the USA during his official visit to Turkey. However, the Azerbaijani president did not change his decision.

Moreover, it is no accident that President Aliyev held a session of the Security Council in Baku at a time when appeals were made during the American-Turkish negotiations in Istanbul to open the border. His refusal to take part in the conference and statements at the Security Council should be seen as a serious demarche against attempts to put pressure on Azerbaijan in the Karabakh settlement.

All this has to show that we are ready for a lot - even to reconsider relations with Turkey and the West in the sphere of energy and other projects.

Saying that Azerbaijan is not going to interfere in bilateral relations between neighbours, Aliyev also let it be known that he is not going to sacrifice the interests of his country. The opening of the border directly affects the interests of Azerbaijan part of whose territory is occupied by Armenia.

Azerbaijan, we think, will not respond to Western calls for peace as long as its national interests are not taken into account. Fraternal relations with Turkey may also change and gas, for example, will be sold for its real price, not cheaply. In their aspiration to bring Turkey and Armenia closer, Washington and Ankara ignore the fact that Azerbaijani territories are still under occupation, which makes Yerevan more self-confident in its refusal to give up its territorial claims and plans to annex Karabakh.

The desire of the Turkish leadership to establish close partnership with the new White House administration is understandable. Perhaps, some people in Washington and Ankara regard compensation to the Armenians at the expense of Azerbaijan as a successful combination. This would make it possible to appease the Armenian diaspora, to remove the issue of recognizing the "genocide of 1915" from the agenda and clear the way for American-Turkish partnership. But, first of all, there is no guarantee that President Obama will put pressure on Congress to block the adoption of a relevant declaration. Even during his visit to Turkey, he made it clear that he keeps to his old opinion about the need to recognize the "genocide", and only for tactical considerations, is he ready to refrain from pronouncing words that are unacceptable and insulting to Turkey. Second, the surrender of principled positions will not bolster respect for Turkey and will hardly speed up its entry into the European Union. This is graphically proved by Cyprus. Ankara gave the green light to the plan of the UN secretary-general to unite the island, but in reply, the Greek Cypriots voted against this plan in a referendum and continue to block the talks between the EU and Turkey. The blockade and sanctions against Northern Cyprus were not lifted either. For this reason, the opening of the border with Armenia may not yield the expected dividends either in Washington or in Brussels, not to mention the fact that Turkey's overtures to Yerevan resulted in Serzh Sargsyan toughening his position in the Minsk Group talks.

Unilateral concessions to Armenia are rejected not just by Azerbaijani politicians and the public, but also in Turkey itself. For example, APA news agency reported that the leader of the Republican People's Party of Turkey, Deniz Baykal, said that the policy of the Turkish government had disappointed Azerbaijan: "I have always noted the importance of relations with Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, we hurt Azerbaijan as a result of the government's Armenian policy. The Azerbaijani president refused to visit Turkey, I don't know whether we will achieve reconciliation with Armenia, but we have already hurt Azerbaijan." The leader of the Turkish opposition Nationalist Action Party, Devlet Bahceli, also negatively assessed the intentions of the Turkish government to open the border with Armenia without considering Azerbaijan's interests.

After the decisive reaction of the Azerbaijani president, protests from the Azerbaijani and Turkish public, the Turkish leadership was forced to put a brake on its plans to normalize relations with Armenia as soon as possible. President Abdullah Gul publicly said that the opening of the border with Armenia will definitely be preceded by Armenia's withdrawal from five occupied districts of Azerbaijan. In turn, Prime Minister Erdogan described the behaviour of those who criticize his government's decisions as politicking. He expressed hope that the UN Security Council will recognize Armenia as an occupier of Nagornyy Karabakh and urge it to withdraw its troops from this region. This is quite an important statement as Turkey is a member of the Security Council at the moment and will take over its presidency in the near future.

Later, Erdogan totally denied the possibility relations with Armenia normalizing without the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict being solved. Such a turn of events deeply disappointed Yerevan, which was reflected in a statement by Armenian Foreign Minister Nalbandyan: "If Turkey continues to put forward pre-conditions for normalizing relations with Armenia, the dialogue between our countries will end. Turkish-Armenian relations can be normalized without pre-conditions. Only in this case, are we ready to continue dialogue with Turkey. If Turkey continues to put forward pre-conditions for opening the border, we will assess this as the end of the dialogue."

However, Azerbaijan's position starts finding understanding. US President Barack Obama phoned his Azerbaijani counterpart on the evening of 7 April. During the phone conversation, Obama expressed the readiness of the White House to render comprehensive assistance to the swift and fair settlement of the Karabakh conflict. The American president pointed out that the USA and Azerbaijan are strategic partners and expressed satisfaction with the level of bilateral relations. The cochairmen of the Minsk Group became active as well. Active consultations are under way between the leaders of Turkey, the USA, Russia and Azerbaijan to break the deadlock in the Karabakh settlement. It has been announced that on 16-17 April, President Ilham Aliyev will pay a working visit to Moscow at the invitation of his Russian counterpart Dmitriy Medvedev. It is reported that Turkish President Abdullah Gul will visit Baku soon in order to give explanations and coordinate his policy.

In a word, the Azerbaijani president's position of principle prompted world leaders to return from historical problems - the so-called "genocide of 1915" - to the real large-scale occupation by Armenia of another country's territory and ethnic cleansing whose victims are more than one million Azerbaijanis.

Ankara's initiative with regard to Armenia, whether intentionally or not, gave an impetus to developments in the region which we hope will have a positive result.