Status quo hinders Turkey’s role in Karabakh dispute, says analyst

‘Maybe there is a need to redefine Turkish-Azerbaijani relations. Turkey and Azerbaijan are one nation and two states, but the two are not one state. The family is getting crowded,’ says a senior foreign policy analyst from TEPAV

Turkish support for Azerbaijan, expressed by keeping the Turkish-Armenian border closed, has proved nothing more than a symbolic gesture, says a senior foreign policy analyst.

In addition, poor Turkish-Armenian relations have hindered Ankara’s prospects of playing an influential role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“For the last 17 years, Turkey’s boycott of Armenia has not brought about a solution. It seems difficult to argue that the insistence on keeping the border with Armenia closed has had any positive impact on the resolution of the Karabakh problem,” Dr. Burcu Gültekin Punsmann wrote in a policy note for the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey, or TEPAV, an Ankara-based think tank.

“Moreover, Turkey’s policy has limited Ankara’s potential influence over Armenia,” Dr. Punsmann added. “While being a permanent member of the Minsk group and supporting its work, poor Turkish-Armenian relations have hindered Turkey’s prospects of playing an active mediating role in the Karabakh conflict.”

Turkey and Armenia inked two protocols this month to normalize their troubled relationship in defiance of domestic opposition, the first intergovernmental text signed between the two neighboring states since the 1921 Treaty of Kars. The agreement is likely to be a harbinger of change in the south Caucasus, where the status quo, characterized by conflicts, divisions, blockades and trade restrictions, is far from being satisfactory, according to Punsmann.

“The status quo was not helpful for Turkey in terms of achieving its policy objectives,” she wrote. “The status quo is also hardly beneficial for Azerbaijan.”

Redefining Azerbaijani relations?

Azerbaijan opposed Turkey’s signing of the protocols with Armenia because there has not yet been a settlement to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani territory occupied by Yerevan. Tension that began with a ban on Azerbaijani flags during the Turkish-Armenian football game in Bursa escalated with the removal of Turkish flags at the martyrdom monument in Azerbaijan.

“Maybe there is a need to redefine Turkish-Azerbaijani relations. Turkey and Azerbaijan are one nation and two states, but the two are not one state. The family is getting crowded,” Punsmann told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

She said the Turkish-Armenian dialogue to normalize relations prompted the revival of talks under the Minsk group to settle the Karabakh dispute. “Of course there is an indirect link between the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations and the resolution of the Karabakh problem, but the latter should not be a precondition for neighborly relations between Ankara and Yerevan,” Punsmann added.

“The Karabakh problem was laid down as a precondition for 17 years and that brought no solution,” said the analyst, who warned that if the protocols fail to pass the respective parliaments of Turkey and Armenia, the Karabakh talks mediated by France, Russia and the U.S. would be suspended and the Minsk group’s interest in the matter would diminish.

“The normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations has the capacity of fostering new dynamics in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, the most intractable conflict and one of the biggest obstacles to region-wide cooperation,” Punsmann wrote in the policy note. “At this stage, the interruption of Turkish-Armenian bilateral relations will dissipate the international attention focused on the region and decrease the chances of an agreement on the conflict over Karabakh for the foreseeable future.”

The protocols signed by the foreign ministers of Turkey and Armenia must be ratified by the two countries’ parliaments in order to come into force.

Hurriyet Daily News

28.10.2009