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 ANKARA
(RFE/RL)–Turkey has given Azerbaijan fresh assurances that it
will not normalize relations with Armenia until a resolution of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict satisfying Azerbaijani demands.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
reiterated on Tuesday that further progress in the Karabakh
peace process will be a determining factor in the consideration
by the Turkish parliament of the Turkish-Armenian agreements
signed in Zurich over the weekend.
“The parliament will look at the developments
in the problems between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” AFP news agency
quoted Erdogan as telling a meeting of his party’s lawmakers,
who hold the majority of seats in Turkey’s Grand National
Assembly.
“If the problems… are put on the track of
solution, the Turkish people will embrace more the normalization
of Turkish-Armenian relations and the Turkish parliament’s
ratification of the protocols will become much easier,” he said.
The Turkish embassy in Baku was even more
explicit about the Karabakh linkage as it tried to soothe
Azerbaijani concerns about the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement in
a statement released on Monday. “As our country’s prime minister
repeatedly stated in his earlier statements, the opening of the
Turkish-Armenian border will be impossible as long as the
occupied Azerbaijani territories are not liberated,” read the
statement cited by Azerbaijani media.
“The opening of border is quite a lengthy
process,” added the embassy. “This process must run parallel to
the process of resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and
liberating the occupied Azerbaijani territories.”
The assurances did not satisfy several dozen
angry Azerbaijanis who staged a brief protest near the Turkish
embassy on Tuesday, burning pictures of Erdogan and Turkey’s
President Abdullah Gul and shouting “Turkey, don’t sell Karabakh
to the Armenians,” and “Shame on the Turkish leadership.”
Reuters news agency said the police later broke up the
demonstration and several people were arrested.
The protest was organized by a hard-line
pressure group hostile to any compromise with the Armenians.
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