It was a “prize in advance”
Turkey's recent active efforts in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement don't mean that it will have the chance to become a co-chair of the Minsk Group," says political scientist Sergey Minasyan.
"This is not linked to Armenia or Azerbaijan, but the other co-chairing countries that wouldn't want to see Turkey play a bigger role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict than it does today," Minasyan told "A1+".
The political scientist says after Turkey became active in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in May and June, it became clear that neither Russia nor the U.S. welcomed its active efforts. "Turkey also understood and came to grips with that."
Sergey Minasyan says the Turkish Foreign Ministry's announcement welcoming the signing of a trilateral agreement in Astrakhan is objective and believes that Turkey is actually trying to advance in the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations and perhaps in the case of formal progress, Turkey will be able to take new steps in the Armenian-Turkish process.
"Relations with Armenia are a problem for Turkey in terms of EU integration and relations with the U.S.," says Sergey Minasyan. "Turkey is currently in a situation where it wants to take a step toward the normalization of relations with Armenia, but doesn't have a real chance of doing that since it is sincere to Azerbaijan. Turkey will rarely have a chance in the near future because I don't see progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement."
The Armenian authorities claim that Armenia undertook the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. Meanwhile, the Turkish President received a the "Chatham House" prize for his initiative aimed at normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations.
In that sense, Minasyan reminds U.S. President Barack Obama's Peace Prize and that it is not clear as to why he received that prize. Minasyan views Gul's prize as a "prize in advance" and doesn't believe that the prize was given to him by Great Britain by chance due to the fact that Great Britain is Azerbaijan's strategic partner.
