BY SEMIH IDIZ
MILLIYET- At the Council of Europe’s Warsaw summit, despite ‘important’ issues on the table such as improving human rights and stepping up the fight against terrorism and human trafficking, attention was focused on a meeting to take place between Erdogan and Kocharian.
Foreign media members, knowing well that the atmosphere would warm up if this meeting took place, pressed their Turkish and Armenian counterparts for information throughout the day. However this long-expected meeting did not take place on the first day of the summit. Turkish and Armenian diplomats didn’t speak a word to each other and observers don’t expect the meeting to take place on the second day either.
While diplomats are being silent on this situation, the press and other observers at the summit think that there are a few reasons why the meeting hasn’t happened. The first reason is that no progress was made on the Nagorno-Karabagh problem in the meeting held between Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. If positive results had emerged from this meeting, it was also expected to have a positive effect on the Erdogan-Kocharian meeting, because Turkey did not forget the commitments it made to Azerbaijan within the framework of peace efforts. However there are other factors hindering the Erdogan-Kocharian meeting.
The wait and see position: The Turkish side was eager to hear Kocharian’s speech at this important summit. The reason for this ‘wait and see’ position is, some time ago when the Armenian president sent a leter to Erdogan, he didn’t offer anything new to the Turkish side. In the end, Kocharian included the issue of the alleged Armenian genocide in his speech, confirming Turkey’s negative expectations, and did not say much to support Turkey’s peace efforts. However, he also revealed the intentions of Yerevan, saying that Europe must be a continent made up of borders and one where embargoes are not in force. It could be understood that with these words he meant Turkey.
The Turkish side expects Armenia to create a different atmosphere on some subjects, but has yet to see any hints of this in Warsaw.