Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Turkey is going to establish the Turkish consulate general in Shushi, which is under Azerbaijan’s control. Aravot.am asked Ruben Melkonyan, the Dean of the Yerevan State University’s Faculty of Oriental Studies, an expert in Turkish studies to comment on the statement.
“We see that the interests of the superpowers are evolving rapidly and intensively, and, naturally, conflict with each other. We need to observe this in a context of a race between the superpowers and their influence. The announcement of a consulate opening in Shushi immediately succeeded the opening of an Iranian consulate in Kapan. It is clearly a message directed not towards Armenia, but towards superpowers like Iran or Russia,” the expert said.
“The need for a consulate is, pretty much, non-existent, as the consulate deals with the issues of the civilians. Occupied territories such as Shushi, do not have the necessary number of Turkish Civilians that a consulate is needed to deal with their various issues. So they are just marking their presence, which is another display of a race and active processes in the region,” Ruben Melkonyan emphasized.
Gohar HAKOBYAN
