YEREVAN (ArmRadio)—The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict stands at the center of a recent wave of diplomatic visits between Turkey, Russia and Armenia, Vladimir Kazimirov, the former Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group mediating the conflict said Monday during a Yerevan-Moscow spacebridge telecast, ArmRadio reported.
Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was meeting with Armenia’s leaders in Yerevan to prepare for a Monday meeting between Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.
“One should look for a link between the visits, because it is clear that the Karabakh issue and the Armenian-Turkish relations are at the center of discussions,” Kazimirov said.
Kazimirov, who was debating the issue with Yerevan-based Political Scientist Alexander Iskandaryan, said he saw the development of Russian-Turkish relations around energy as contributing factor to the settlement of the Karabakh issue as Turkey seeks a non-military solution to the regional issue.
Iskandaryan, for his part, however, predicted that the growing ties between Russia and Turkey would undoubtedly influence the Karabakh conflict, but not in a decisive way.
“Everything in the world is interrelated, and it’s clear that such changes can have serious results in the region, which will lead to the change of transport communications and energy programs and will change the role of different countries in the region,” Alexander Iskandaryan said.
