Sunday, February 22, 2009

STATEMENT: Armenian turcologist: The Caucasus Platform has no future.

ArmInfo. Turkey's initiative on creating the Caucasus Stability and Security Platform has no future and can't be implemented, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, turcologist Rouben Safrastyan told journalists, Saturday.
"The matter is that three countries of the South Caucasus will have to sign a common document and carry out joint actions aimed at maintaining security in the South Caucasus with two countries which are no part of this region. But how can, for instance, Georgia having problems with Russia, or Azerbaijan having problems with Armenia sign such a document?"
- Safrastyan said. According to him, this initiative is a diplomatic phenomenon often applied when a proposal, in which not the goal but the process itself is important, is put to discussion. "The process is profitable for Russia and Turkey", he said. The process will give Russia to demonstrate to the USA that the latter has nothing to do in the Caucasus, and as regards Turkey, the process will give it an opportunity to create a kind of counterweight to the military-political domination of Russia in the Caucasus which was fixed after the South-Ossetian conflict, and to show that it is also an important regional player",- Safrastyan concluded.

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