 |
Clinton seeks to ease Nagorno-Karabakh tensions with Baku
A US-backed push for a rapprochement between Armenia and US-ally Turkey has hurt US relations with Azerbaijan, which worries that its interests will be suffer as a result. Baku in April accused the United States of siding with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. As a result of the strains in the relationship, including the absence of a US ambassador for more than a year, Baku threatened to “reconsider” its ties with the United States.
Strategically located between Russia and Iran, Azerbaijan has been a key supply route for US troops in Afghanistan, but ties have been frayed by multiple issues. While seeking to improve relations and make some headway on Nagorno-Karabakh, Clinton also pressed Azerbaijan to show greater respect for civil liberties and said she had raised the case of two jailed opposition bloggers.
Hosting Clinton at his palatial summer residence on the Caspian Sea, Azeri President İlham Aliyev made clear that his priority was Nagorno-Karabakh. “This is a major problem for us and the major threat to regional security,” Aliyev told Clinton as they sat beneath a chandelier in an airy, high-ceilinged room overlooking the sea. “We want to find a resolution as soon as possible,” he added, “Our people are suffering.”
Clinton said the United States was committed to its ties with Azerbaijan. “The issues that you mention are of importance to us,” she said. She was also due to meet mediators from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group, which has been trying to find a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh solution for nearly two decades.
Azerbaijan wants Nagorno-Karabakh back, if necessary by force. More than 15 years of mediation have failed to produce a final peace deal and the threat of war is never far away. Last month, four ethnic Armenian troops and an Azeri soldier died in an exchange of fire near Nagorno-Karabakh.
Clinton is the second top US official to visit Azerbaijan in a month, following Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ early June trip designed to smooth ruffled feathers and to guarantee US supply lines for Afghanistan.
Since 2001, military aircraft and supply trucks have crossed the country carrying US and NATO forces and equipment to Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants to avoid problems that could slow Obama’s 30,000-troop surge.
The strains ran so deep that Gates delivered a letter to Aliyev in June from US President Barack Obama, who said he was aware of the “serious issues in our relationship,” but was confident they could be addressed.
Speaking to civil society advocates, including bloggers, Clinton later said Azerbaijan had some way to go on respecting its citizen’s rights. “While considerable progress has been made here, you know better than I there is work to be done,” Clinton told about a dozen young Azerbaijanis. “There are still lots of challenges,” she added.
Clinton said she and Obama had received letters about two Azerbaijani bloggers who were sentenced last year to two and two and a half years in jail after a violent incident in a cafe, in which the bloggers say they were the victims of an unprovoked attack.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| BÜLENT KENEŞ |  |
||
| What befell Niyazi-i Misri in the past is happening to Fethullah Gülen now | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
| ABDULLAH BOZKURT |  |
||
| Turkey and Mexico: Distant yet so close | |||
| ARZU KAYA URANLI |  |
||
| On Memorial Day a few words to make your day memorable | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Are the Kurds mentally divorced from Turkey? | |||
| CUMALİ ÖNAL |  |
||
| Critical months for Egypt | |||
| DOĞU ERGİL |  |
||
| Qualities of power | |||
| YAVUZ BAYDAR |  |
||
| Qualm | |||
| GÖKHAN BACIK |  |
||
| Erdoğan, Gül and Davutoğlu: the inner bargain on Turkish foreign policy | |||
| JOOST LAGENDIJK |  |
||
| Europe can’t have it all. Or can it? | |||
| MELİH ARAT |  |
||
| Handmade | |||
| SEYFETTİN GÜRSEL |  |
||
| Poor-friendly economic growth and the AK Party | |||
| CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON |  |
||
| Missing women, missing opportunities | |||
| BERK ÇEKTİR |  |
||
| Changes to incentives for investment in Turkey | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
