Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug. 21 / Trend S.Agayeva /
NATO and the U.S. pressure on Turkey over the issue of opening the Turkish-Armenian border for the NATO exercises, Azerbaijani Independent Political Scientist Fikret Sadikhov said.
This is evidenced by the contradictory information coming from Ankara over the possible opening of Armenian-Turkish border for the NATO exercises. The officials' statements on the matter are entirely mutually exclusive, said Saturday Trend analyst.
Earlier, it was reported that Turkey does not exclude the possibility of a partial and temporary opening of the Turkish-Armenian border Sept.11- 17, 2010 as part of NATO military exercises planned in Armenia. But Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu denied this information
One thing is clear- the borders will not be opened in the close term for the political address of the Armenian-Turkish relations and their further stabilization in atmosphere of re-establishing diplomatic relations and development of economic ties, Sadikhov said. Sadikhov excluded such a scenario of solutions in the near future.
"Turkey is clearly under pressure over the opening of the borders for the exercises and it frankly felt on the part of NATO and the United States, which, of course, would like to take advantage of this situation and demonstrate their influence and strategic interests in the region," he said.
"Despite the independent foreign policy and independent course, and sometimes even a course that does not always meet with the United States' priorities in the region, the Turkish authorities, in certain sense, try to maneuver, that is, with opening the border at least during NATO exercises, Ankara hopes that they will remain closed for an extended period of time," Sadikhov said.
Sadikhov said that it does not mean that Turkey is ready to open its borders with Armenia without fulfillment of the conditions that have been set before Yerevan over the liberation of Azerbaijani territories and a number of issues related to settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a whole. "I would not connect these two issues. But it is clear and obvious that Ankara is under serious pressure of Washington and some controversial statements by the Turkish officials are evidence to this," Sadikhov stressed.
Diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey have been broken due to Armenia's claims of an alleged genocide, and its occupation of Azerbaijani lands. The border between them has been broken since 1993.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the occupied territories.
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