AK Party Deputy Chairman of External Affairs and Spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Turkish Parliament Suat KINIKLIOGLU took part in the workshop on Turkish-Armenian relations, organized by the SETA foundation on May 26-27, 2009.

The workshop was attended by bureaucrats, academics and experts on the region. Issues covered were current bilateral developments, difficulties in the normalization process and proposals contributing to the rapprochement of the two countries.

In his speech KINIKLIOGLU pointed out that he regarded such meetings as an opportunity to get to know Armenian think-tanks and civil society organizations. He stressed that a better understanding of each other is needed. KINIKLIOGLU said:

“Turkey, considering its size and strength, is one of the few countries in this region able to project power to its immediate surroundings. With almost all of these countries Turkey has got excellent relations in the fields of energy, security as well as political and economic relations. It is just normal that such meetings take place in Istanbul and indeed they have to be held more frequently since this meeting has demonstrated how little we know each other. I also want to mention that this meeting does not have the aim to define or discuss the events of 1915. What we are trying to do is to analyze how we can improve Turkish-Armenian relations, what the role of Azerbaijan is in this context and the dynamics in the region.”

After having said that the government has started a normalization process following President Abdullah Gul’s visit to Yerevan and that the foreign ministries of Switzerland, Turkey and Armenia declared a document defining a road map KINIKLIOGLU added:

“With all our neighbors in the Balkan and Black Sea region, in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean region we want to fortify our dialogue, trade volume and cultural exchange.

As you know we were on the edge of a war with Syria in 1998. And look at the situation we have now...Why should we not have the same relations with the three countries of South Caucasus? We already have excellent relations with Georgia and Azerbaijan. We want to add Armenia to this trio so that the whole South Caucasus will stabilize. But we also say; in the case of the Karabagh conflict the actual responsibility lies with Azerbaijan and Armenia while Turkey has an assisting role. Turkey takes action if there is political will in Azerbaijan and Armenia determined to find a solution to the Karabag issue.
The process for a solution in Karabag and the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations are two parallel processes which are mutually reinforcing each other although they are commonly seen as two distinct issues. We have to welcome this process but it is not all over yet. Of course we will witness some developments in the subsequent months.