Epress.am News from Armenia
At a press conference today, Assistant Professor with the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University, Dr. Behlül Özkan said that the fate of Armenian-Turkish relations has already been decided, since today Russia is considered Armenia’s closest military partner and Russia’s interest in improving Armenia-Turkey relations became obvious after the signing of the Armenia-Turkey Protocols.
“Ankara likewise expected that Russia would have a specific role in the work of normalizing Armenia-Turkey relations as Russian-Turkish economic relations are much more developed than, for example, Turkish-American relations. However, after the signing of the Armenia-Turkey agreement, Russia’s adopted policy was a cause for disappointment in Ankara, since Russia wanted to contribute to the decline of Turkish-Azerbaijani relations on the background of improved Armenia-Turkey relations, and to take Azerbaijan’s place in Turkey’s political and economic arenas,” said Ozkan.
On the matter of a possible Armenia-Azerbaijan war, Ozkan said he doesn’t think that a war will start.
“The probability of war is low since Azerbaijan is tied to Turkey and the outside world through natural gas and oil, as well as the Azerbaijani authorities definitely wouldn’t want any war to jeopardize their ties to the outside world or their natural gas or oil routes,” added Ozkan.