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Turkish Prime Ministerâ€™s advisor: South Caucasus to remain on Turkeyâ€™s agenda

24 June 2011 08:05 (UTC +04:00)

â€œThe long-term peace in the South Caucasus is one of the top priorities that Turkey involved in the region and we are going to do our best on thatâ€, said Ibrahim Kalin, chief foreign policy adviser for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, answering APAâ€™s Washington DC correspondentâ€™s question.

He says, Ankara hopes that recent diplomatic mobility in the South Caucasus will eventually lead to concrete progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan and will enable Turkey to pass a so-called threshold to move ahead in ongoing efforts for the normalization of ties with estranged neighbor Armenia.

Mr. Kalin spoke at a Middle East Institute forum in the US capital with participation of the prominent US and Turkish experts, also top-officials, including the US Assistant Secretary of Defense Alexander Vershbow and others.

In his speech, Mr. Vershbow mentioned that, the United States will work with Turkish partners relying on their priorities in the region including, peace in the South Caucasus.

â€œWe also strongly support Turkish-Armenian rapprochement and all of other efforts that will bring the peace to the regionâ€, he added.

Mr. Kalin noted that while AKP won only half of the countryâ€™s votes, polls showed the 65 percent to 70 percent of the population approved of its foreign policy, which has included Caucasus, Middle East, North Africa and a cooling of its longstanding alliance with Israel.

Speaking about the Turkeyâ€™s policy on the â€œArab Springâ€, Namik Tan, Turkeyâ€™s ambassador to the US underscored that, â€œour Arab brothers deserve the democracy that weâ€™ve been enjoyedâ€.