Diplomacy in Caucasus to speed up, FM
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Hurriyet Daily News
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Kasım 13, 2008 00:00
ANKARA - Foreign Minister Ali Babacan says the upcoming days will see intense diplomatic contacts in the Caucasus and announces his Armenian counterpart will soon visit Turkey. The visit will be a follow-up to the landmark meeting of the two countries’ presidents
Armenia’s foreign minister, Edward Nalbandian, is expected to visit Turkey some time soon, his Turkish counterpart, Ali Babacan, said yesterday.
The visit will be a follow-up to the landmark meeting of the two countries’ presidents in September.
He said the upcoming days would see intense diplomatic contacts in the Caucasus, adding that he would visit Azerbaijan but noted that the exact time of the visits was not certain.
Turkey presented a proposal to establish a Caucasus platform in the wake of the Georgia-Russia war last summer. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are backing the Turkish initiative for stability in the region. The platform will give Yerevan and Baku an opportunity to iron out their differences over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Babacan voiced support for Russia's role in improving ties between Armenia and Azerbaijan. "The Russian role is important. Russia will make important contributions to the normalization of Azerbaijani-Armenian relations," he told a joint press conference with his visiting Algerian counterpart.
Hosted by Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev, the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Serge Sarkisian met near Moscow recently and signed a joint declaration asserting their desire for a political settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Babacan also commented on a bilateral meeting between Sarkisian and Turkish President Abdullah Gül, who paid a landmark visit to Yerevan in September to watch a football match between the Turkish-Armenian national teams. He said the Armenian president did not need to wait for another football occasion to visit Turkey and added he expected the meeting between Sarkisian and Gül would take place in a short period of time.
Asked about a question on a trilateral summit between the foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, Babacan said the three-way talks occurred on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York and that all the sides were in agreement to press ahead with three-way talks.
The visit will be a follow-up to the landmark meeting of the two countries’ presidents in September.
He said the upcoming days would see intense diplomatic contacts in the Caucasus, adding that he would visit Azerbaijan but noted that the exact time of the visits was not certain.
Turkey presented a proposal to establish a Caucasus platform in the wake of the Georgia-Russia war last summer. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are backing the Turkish initiative for stability in the region. The platform will give Yerevan and Baku an opportunity to iron out their differences over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Babacan voiced support for Russia's role in improving ties between Armenia and Azerbaijan. "The Russian role is important. Russia will make important contributions to the normalization of Azerbaijani-Armenian relations," he told a joint press conference with his visiting Algerian counterpart.
Hosted by Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev, the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Serge Sarkisian met near Moscow recently and signed a joint declaration asserting their desire for a political settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Babacan also commented on a bilateral meeting between Sarkisian and Turkish President Abdullah Gül, who paid a landmark visit to Yerevan in September to watch a football match between the Turkish-Armenian national teams. He said the Armenian president did not need to wait for another football occasion to visit Turkey and added he expected the meeting between Sarkisian and Gül would take place in a short period of time.
Asked about a question on a trilateral summit between the foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, Babacan said the three-way talks occurred on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York and that all the sides were in agreement to press ahead with three-way talks.