Expert blog: Turkey imitates thaw in relations with Armenia

Official Ankara confirmed that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will attend the meeting of the BSEC Council of Foreign Ministers in Yerevan on December 12. In parallel with that, information is being spread that Turkey is prepared to normalize relations with Armenia in case of fulfillment of a number of conditions by Armenia.

On the path of imitating a thaw in Armenian-Turkish relations, Ankara replaces its traditional propaganda theses with those that might seem softer, but are not inferior to the previous theses in terms of their contents.

Turkey previously declared that the Armenian-Turkish normalization process is related to the process of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement, whereas in his recent interview, the Turkish foreign minister formulated his demand as follows: “The normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey depends on establishment of peace in the South Caucasus” (Haberturk).

When commenting on Turkey’s relations with Georgia and Azerbaijan, Ahmet Davutoglu declared that “Armenian-Russian relations aside, Armenia is in a blockade - one can say”.

Speaking about closing the border with Armenia, Davutoglu didn’t provide any legal grounds for that step. And he ‘accidentally’ forgot the fact that Armenia is bordered by Iran to the south and it has quite active economic ties with this country. As regards Georgia, nobody denies that Turkey and Georgia have close relations, but it does not mean that the Armenian-Georgian border is closed and Armenia communicates with the outside world only through Russia, which has no common border with Armenia.
The real reasons for Turkey’s activation are clear, but some circles in Armenia accidentally or intentionally ‘allow themselves to be run by that policy’ and contribute to the dissemination of Turkish theses.

It is not always necessary to react to Turkey’s statements, but it is important that in the next 2-3 years the Armenian expert and reporting circles respond adequately to messages from Turkey. Armenia should become more active at an official level and react to and assess Turkey’s sham steps if necessary.