BY FERAI TINC
HURRIYET- I recently met with Azerbaijani opposition leader Isa Gamber in Istanbul. He was in Istanbul to participate in the meeting on Democratization and Security in the Wider Middle East, organized by the ARI movement last week. Gamber has been carrying the mantle of Azerbaijan’s opposition leader for the longest time in Azerbaijan. He believes the general elections set for this November are very important for democratization in his country. It seems Azerbaijan will be the next stop of the velvet revolutions. They have already put orange handkerchiefs in their pockets. However, I didn’t talk about these issues with Gamber. We discussed mostly Turkish-Azerbaijani relations. ‘Turkey shouldn’t shrink from dealing with the Armenian issue,’ he said. ‘If it’s going to take steps about this issue, it should talk with the Azerbaijani government.’ Maybe Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will talk about this issue with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during his visit this week to Baku, but Gamber means that Turkey shouldn’t discuss the border gate problem with Armenia separate from the Nagorno-Karabagh issue. He asked, ‘Would establishing good relations with the Armenian government save Turkey from the pressure of the “genocide” claims?’ Then he answered himself. ‘It’s a mistake to think that if concessions are made, the Armenian government would soften its stance. When Turkey opened its airspace, what changed? Genocide allegations are still the backbone of Armenian state policy. It won’t stop these allegations. If Turkey is going to open its borders, it should firstly talk to the Azerbaijani government and tell it the reasons for doing this and the sums to be earned in return.” Because the Azerbaijani government, 20% of whose land is under Armenian occupation, should know what Turkey’s change of policy will bring.
I wanted to know if Turkey’s relations with Armenia would always be like this. He replied, ‘We believe that relations with Armenia should be improved. When we come to power, we will try to do this, but problems in Caucasia should also be solved. Democracy should come not only to Azerbaijan, but also to Armenia.’ So many things have slowed down in Turkish-Azerbaijani relations, compared to 15 years ago. There’s nothing concrete except mutual interest in the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. Now nobody is taking creative steps to develop the humanitarian or cultural aspects of relations. Gamber said, ‘We should discuss such subjects as the Armenian or Cyprus issue with Turkey and draw up plans together.’ It’s our responsibility to start with Azerbaijan to develop a common basis of action covering Georgia and Armenia.