Opposition Leader Baykal Is Against The Visit To Armenia

The possibility that President Abdullah Gül may go to Erivan to watch the Armenia-Turkey soccer game has received harsh response from Deniz Baykal, president of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). He said he would have rather gone to Bakü, Azerbaijan’s capitol city.

Prof. Dr. Baskın Oran and journalist/writer Ayşe Hür have reacted to Baykal’s response to the President’s possible plan to visit Armenia.

Oran said, “the visit means the desire to normalize the relationships” and Hür emphasized that solving the problems  between the two countries started by forming relations.

Baykal is for restricted relationship

Armenian President Serj Sargisyan had said that he could have taken a step that would help advance the relations between the two countries and had invited Gül to the soccer game in Armenia.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Babacan confirmed that a delegation from Turkey would go to Armenia. According to an authority from the ministry, if Gül goes to Armenia his agenda will be the ‘Mountainous Karabag’, the disputed enclave between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which is under the Armenian occupation at the moment.

Baykal rests his objection on three reasons:

- Turkey’s territorial integrity has not been accepted by Armenia yet.

- Armenia supports the genocide allegation against Turkey with all the means possible.

- Armenia occupied the Azerbaijan territory, the Upper Karabag, and this occupation is still continuing.

According to Baykal the relationship between Armenia and Turkey should stay restricted

“Armenia does not have a problem with its Turkish border”

Oran made the following comments about Baykal’s explanations:  

- “I personally heard Vartan Oskanyan, Foreign Minister of Armenia, saying that they did not have any problem with their Turkish border. When the foreign ministers make declarations like this one, they are binding.”

- “As long as Turkey denies the 1915 massacres, we cannot use the term genocide. As long as we defend the things the Ottomans did, nobody will accept our objection to the term genocide.”

- “Is it Turkey’s business to defend Azerbaijan’s interests? Azerbaijan committee left the hall during a European Council meeting when the subject was the Cyprus problem. For they would have been in an awkward position if they had defended Northern Cyprus’s right to be a state, when they were against the same right in the case of the Mountainous Karabag.”  

“We could ease the problem by starting mutual relationships”

According to Hür, the solution to this particular problem could only start by forming relations, not by satisfying Baykal’s conditions.

Emphasizing the complexity of the Karabag problem, Hür says the relations can be improved and this way it may be possible for Turkey to be part of the problems. Turkey can state its own opinions about the Karabag problem. It can be a mediator. This way a new genocide terminology can be developed as well. Putting the need to have a relationship before anything else may be helpful to solving the problem.(EZÖ/EÜ)