Erdogan and Putin do not agree on the Karabakh settlement

Baku/15.11.17/Turan: Over this year the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have communicated 16 times: 12 times on the phone and 4 times face to face. After a short conflict, which began exactly two years ago after the Turkish air defenses shot down a Russian fighter, relations between the two countries began to improve, and in fact returned to the former friendly track. Erdogan expressed his condolences over the shot down plane, and Russia lifted food sanctions, and let in the Turkish vegetables and fruits.

The leaders of the two countries last met in September this year in Ankara. The meeting, during which the presidents discussed the situation in Syria, issues of bilateral cooperation and regional security, was of an urgent nature.

The meeting of the presidents in Sochi lasted five instead of the planned three hours, and after it, both Putin and Erdogan did not go into the details of the talks when they came to the journalists. Before meeting with his Russian counterpart, the Turkish president said that in addition to the Syrian issue and the prospects for strengthening trade and economic ties and cooperation in the energy sector, he intends to discuss the Karabakh issue: "I will talk about it with Russian President Putin when we meet. His attitude to the Karabakh problem is very important. If Putin, really, focuses on this issue, it can be easily solved," Erdogan said. However, after the meeting, the presidents did not make any statements on this matter.

It's no secret that the talks of the presidents of the states of the leaders of the region are of great importance for Azerbaijan. It's not just about settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but also about regional trade and economic, strategic ties. What did Putin and Erdogan agree on, and what impact will this have on Azerbaijan?

The Sochi meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyub Erdogan and his counterpart Vladimir Putin is hardly a success," said Elkhan Shahinoglu, head of the Atlas Center for Strategic Studies. In his opinion, Erdogan could not get what he wanted from Putin.

"Both presidents at a press conference on the results of the meeting, said the successful development of economic and trade cooperation, regional projects. However, these issues have already been settled, for this there is no need to meet so often. "Turkish flow" ahead of schedule is laid on the bottom of the Black Sea, Russia is preparing to build a nuclear power plant in Turkey, Russian bazaars are open for Turkish tomatoes, etc. The thing is that Erdogan wanted to discuss absolutely other issues with Putin this time. A week ago, he said that he wanted to discuss with the Russian counterpart the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Erdogan then added that if Putin wants, the conflict can be resolved within a week. Erdogan's meeting with Putin behind closed doors lasted more than 4 hours. It is possible that the Turkish president touched upon the Karabakh issue during the meeting. However, with a high probability, Putin confined himself only to general expressions and turned the conversation into another direction. Erdogan said that the Kremlin leader, although is the main person who can speed up the process of resolving the conflict, does not want to take advantage of this opportunity. Because the conditions proposed by him are difficult for Azerbaijan. Without fulfilling these conditions, Moscow will not show interest in the resolution of the Karabakh conflict. Therefore, the Presidents of Turkey and Russia did not say a single word about Karabakh at the press conference. So, we have not agreed, "the political scientist said.

According to Shahinoglu, the Turkish president wants the Turkmen gas to go to Turkey along the bottom of the Caspian Sea through Azerbaijan and Georgia, but here again it was a failure.

"In this issue also Putin should express his word, because it is the Kremlin, under the pretext of ecological security, against laying the gas pipeline along the bottom of the Caspian Sea, and Baku and Ashgabat cannot resist this. Erdogan also failed to win Putin's support on this issue," Shahinoglu said.

The political scientist also stressed that the Turkish leader could not get a positive decision from his Russian counterpart and other issues important for Turkey: the liquidation of the visa regime, the withdrawal from Syria and the liquidation of military bases.

Shahinoglu noted the fact that after Erdogan's visit to Sochi, where the Karabakh issue was to be discussed, an interesting tour of visits began.

"A day after the visit of the Turkish President, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian was summoned to Moscow, and two days later, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov is traveling to the Russian capital. Four days after the meeting with them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will leave for Baku and Yerevan. Is not it a strange trajectory of meetings? Why to meet in Baku and Yerevan with the ministers who met in Moscow two days ago? I do not think that all these combinations are in our favor.

It is not by chance that at a conference President Ilham Aliyev dedicated to the jubilee of the ruling party on the eve of Lavrov's visit stated that there is no change in the principled position of Azerbaijan in the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," E.Shahinoglu stressed.

It should be noted that Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, who is leaving for Moscow today to meet with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, said that Azerbaijan demands a solution to the conflict.

"The meeting agenda is known. We want the negotiations not to be conducted for the sake of negotiations. We even demand specific results. At the meeting of the presidents it was also noted that the negotiations should be intensive. I am going to Moscow with this position. It's time to solve this conflict. Everyone knows that negotiations must be effective, forced migrants must return back, and peace must be ensured. Azerbaijan insists on moving this issue from the spot," Mammadyarov stressed.