Hasan Kanbolat: Baku Should Re-evaluate

[Spezzatura]

It is expected that the Obama administration will please Turkey and honor its expectations with respect to Armenian claims of genocide on April 24 and that Turkey will make attempts to normalize its relations with Armenia.

The establishment of diplomatic relations will be a first step to this end. This will be followed by the opening up of the border between the two countries. Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan will attend the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) Ministerial Council meeting in Yerevan on April 15.

Turkey has informed Baku of the rapprochement with Armenia. Baku is only following the developments. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry wants to hold a meeting on the strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Turkey and regional security in Ankara in June to make its views clear. However, this meeting is relatively insignificant and does not carry any weight. Baku has failed to interpret the ongoing changes in the Southern Caucasus and to develop adequate measures to protect its interests.

Since its independence, Azerbaijan has never paid attention to Turkey. It has followed a policy suggesting that ignoring Turkey would not do much harm. Only clichéd slogans -- "two states, one nation" -- have been voiced. A branch of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation was opened in Moscow, but there is no such branch in Ankara. Azerbaijani diplomats have paid only a small number of visits to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Baku has neglected Turkish intellectuals, bureaucrats, civil society organizations, the media and the public. It has chosen the easy way and tried to carry out its relations through high-level talks between party leaders, government members and military officers. Despite the fact that part of Azerbaijan's territory is still under Armenian occupation, Baku has not developed an accepted Armenian policy. Baku has also failed to extend the economic privileges it has given to Iran and Russia to Turkey. It overlooks the close relations between Iran and Armenia.

However, this policy is no longer sustainable. Baku has to realize that its policy of negligence is not applicable. The development of a new style and policy in Azerbaijani-Turkish relations is now a necessity. It is now time to honor the brotherhood between the two nations by developing a realistic policy.

To make sure that these bilateral relations go beyond empty gestures and are based on realistic policies, it is necessary to recall the foundations of the strategic partnership between Turkey and Azerbaijan. The Caucasian army led by Nuri Paşa liberated Baku in May 1918. In 1921, Soviet Azerbaijan donated oil and 1 million rubles for use in the Turkish War of Independence. Azerbaijani volunteers fought together with Turks against their adversaries.

Despite the fact that bilateral relations between the two countries were relatively insignificant during the Cold War era because of their alignment with different poles, relations between the peoples of these two nations were always warm. The soccer game between Neftçi Peşekar and Galatasaray in 1962 exemplifies this warmth. While elderly people and women did not usually attend soccer games back then, a number of older people and women watched that game. The goal was not to see Galatasaray. Their goal was to see Turks and sense the presence of Turks. In August 2001, around 1 million people were present at the Azatlık Square in Baku to watch the ceremonial flights of Turkish military jets. This amounted to one-sixth of the whole population of the country. Turkish jets, which made the Azerbaijanis feel they were not alone, did not fly as part of a foreign military establishment. The people did not feel they were aliens. They considered the jets and the pilots as their own sons and assets. It is now time to appreciate these feelings and the sensitivity that comes with them and develop new policies for relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan.

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