Professor of Foreign Affairs at Istanbul’s Bogazici University Behlul Ozkan excludes the prospect of resuming Armenian-Azeri war, since Azerbaijan would not want to endanger its economic ties with the world.
“It’s not in Turkey’s best interests either, since the two countries are interconnected through oil and gas industry, trade, and cooperation between chemical companies,” says Ozkan, who is currently in Armenia to lead workshops on “The shift in Turkey’s Foreign Policy in Armenia and its impact on the South Caucasus”. Reflecting on the Armenian-Turkish protocols, the native-Turkish professor said:
“They failed because the Turkish government would be strongly criticized by Turkish opposition if it didn’t bring in the precondition of normalizing the Armenian-Azeri relations.”
He believes that Turkey, in fact, wants the border to open, however Armenian specialist in Turkish studies Artak Shakaryan is of radically different opinion on that issue.
“I am convinced that Turkey needed the process but didn’t need the result. Turkey entered the game to win time and go through another April 24, with a clear understanding that no progress is possible in the Karabakh issue because it would mean a political suicide for the Armenian authorities,” says Shakaryan.
Now that the protocols have proved to be a failure, Ozkan thinks, it will take years to normalize the bilateral relations. The Turkish government, he says, is disappointed in Russia’s current policy the key of which is that Russia doesn’t want the issue to be solved not to lose its influence in the South Caucasus.
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