Says director of Istanbul “Global Political Trends Center” Mensur Akgun
During the “Armenia-Turkey – politics and media discussions” forum the Turkish side made quite pessimistic statements on the Armenian-Turkish relations. For example, one of the participants said that one should not have expectations that the diplomatic relations would be established and claimed that neither now nor in the visible future the Turkish Cabinet was going to recognize the Armenian Genocide, since it was not ready to face the history. The second orator stated that Turkey could not have zero problems in regard to the foreign relations, since it is surrounded by enemies from 4 sides, by the way, he left unanswered the question of the Armenian participant what 4 countries those were. Under these conditions, the viewpoints of director of Istanbul “Global Political Trends Center” Mensur Akgun who gave more importance to the relations settlement between Armenia and Turkey than the relations between his country and Azerbaijan were quite different.
He stated that they conducted a study, almost half of the participants of which expressed a desire to settle the relations with Armenia. At “Aravot’s” request, Mr. Akgun presented this survey a little bit detailed, “Around a thousand men participated in that survey that was made under the auspices of TESEV (The Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation) at the end of the last century and the results have been published quite recently. The aim of the survey was to understand whether the foreign policy of Turkey is welcomed or denied by the Turkish public opinion. Many questions were asked not only about the Turkey-Armenia relations, but also the politics conducted in the Middle East etc. The results were positive for the most part; they supported the politics conducted by the government. And one of the results of the survey was the following; when they asked what political and economic expectations they generally had from the reconciliation process between Armenia and Turkey, around 50% of the survey participants (in the case of first question 49% and the other 54%) showed their support for the relations settlement. And this happened, notwithstanding the historical problems and the failure of “the football diplomacy”. We think this is a significant result.”
One of the results of the survey is the following that Azerbaijan as a friendly country is considered second after Iran. Under these conditions his opinion expressed during the discussions is more interesting that Turkey loses much; the Turkish-Armenian relations are more important than the relations with Azerbaijan. In response to our remark, one can never hear such an opinion in Turkey where the dominating notion is that Azerbaijan is a very important and strategic partner, the director of “Global Political Trends Center” said, Azerbaijan is really an important partner in this period of time. However, at the same time, our many-sided relations should not become the prisoner of Azerbaijan’s or Armenia’s freewill. We have to find the way to improve the relations. The Turkish side had an obvious misunderstanding, when initiating this process they hoped that they could convince the Azerbaijani side about the future of the settlement of the Armenian-Turkish relations.” Our interlocutor stated that it is not right that the NK conflict settlement issue is considered as a precondition, “Some circles in Turkey, particularly the decision makers expect a step forward in the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations. But if there is no step forward it does not mean that this abnormal situation must last forever.”
We inquired whether he also thought that there was no hope that in the visible future the diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia would be established. “I think there is such a prospect”, answered Mensur Akgun. “Since Turkey has declared the politics of “zero problems with neighbors”, it has to find ways to fulfill that motto.” This mention gave cause to remind the pun of the leader of the Democratic People’s Party of Turkey that “there is no neighbor we have no problem.” The director of “Global Political Trends Center” claimed in response that there was a step forward concerning the resolution of many issues; for example, the relations with Greece had been considerably improved etc., “Therefore, there is an advance. And if we want the “zero-problem” politics to have an influence on the Turkish-Armenian relations, both sides should be more creative than they were in the past to find a compromise. And they have to improve the relations with Armenia, without interconnecting our relations with Azerbaijan.”