The Turkologist believes that Russian-Turkish relations will not affect the Azerbaijani policy
“Turkey always says that it is standing next to Azerbaijan and during the war it showed a real assistance to Azerbaijan. Now, simply the statements have become acute, they are trying to play diplomacy. Principally, nothing has changed. This has a demonstrative significance. They are demonstrating to Russia, they are trying to intimidate Russia’s ally Armenia,” says the Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies Ruben Safrastyan in an interview with “Aravot”.
We have talked to him about the escalation of the Russian-Turkish relations, also the speculation of the Karabakh conflict in this context, primarily Prime Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu had announced in Azerbaijan that Armenia must return the territories of Azerbaijan. “Prior to the final liberation of Azerbaijani territories, Turkey will stand next to Azerbaijan,” he said. “I do not think that Azerbaijan will be so narrow-minded that will involve Turkey in this game and will fulfill the commands coming from Turkey. The Azerbaijani leadership visualizes the situation in the region very well. It must understand that if he involves Turkey into this game and displays more aggressive stance towards Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, then he will pay a heavy price for it too,” says Mr. Safrastyan in the interview with us.
He does not associate the recent subversive act by Azerbaijani armed forces on the Karabakh-Azerbaijani border to the escalation of the Russian-Turkish relations. “This is the expression of Azerbaijan’s position and aggressive ambitions. We can say that in recent period Azerbaijan behaves pretty restrained. In any case, this is the overall strategic approach by Azerbaijan. Obviously, by aggressive ambitions and attacks, it is trying to exert pressure on the co-chairs and thus, by its calculations, it is trying to extract benefits of the peace process, says Mr. Safrastyan, and notes that it is obvious for him that this political posture is based on the aggression and has no future. He always gets a very clear counterattack by the Armenian armed forces. If getting a counterattack each time, he still continues, and it does not get lessons from it, in the case of a stronger attack, it will get a stronger counter-attack.”
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Ruben Safrastyan does not agree with those assessments, according to which after the shot down of the Russian warplane by Turkey, Russia and Turkey are voicing accusations against each other. “Turkey organized a very outrageous provocation, in response to which, Russia decided to introduce Turkey’s involvement more decisively in showing assistance to the “Islamic state”. It is not like one said something and the other responded.”
Delving into the Syrian crisis, organizing provocations against Russia, Ruben Safrastyan continues considering them adventurous politics implemented by Turkey. “Thus, it wants to ensure that the Russia under the pressure of NATO will ease its influence in this Syrian crisis, but the calculation came out to be wrong,” says the Turkologist.
In the meantime, according to our interlocutor, there can be no word about keeping neutrality by Armenia. “Because we have agreements, we are an ally with Russia, a CSTO member. That is the reality. But this does not mean that we should attack Turkey. Yes, we have our historical problems with Turkey, which, unfortunately, we are unable to resolve alone by ourselves. This requires having a relevant geopolitical situation. Currently, our ally is Russia, I do not rule out that the situation will change, and we will have other allies. Nothing can be ruled out in the politics. For example, when the Treaty of Sevres was signed, our allies were several western countries, while the Bolshevik leadership was against it.”
To the observations, according to which constantly Armenians suffer from the escalation of the Russian-Turkish relations, Mr. Safrastyan recalls the historical past, when the Bolshevik Russia and Kemalist Turkey concluded an “alliance” against the imperialist West. The First Republic collapsed.
HRIPSIME HOVHANNISYAN,
“Aravot” daily
