Erdogan admits: Putin planned no pressure upon Armenia in Karabakh issue

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that at a recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin he discussed the Karabakh issue, reports star.com.tr. The Turkish leader practically admitted that Moscow is not going to exert pressure upon Armenia, like Ankara and Baku expect.

According to Erdogan, Russia has influence upon Armenia. “There a decision made earlier on five of the seven occupied territories. We agreed that the decisions are to be implemented. Mr. Putin is positive about it, but, as far as I understood, he pins no hopes on it. I think his hopelessness is connected with the relations between the two countries,” Erdogan said.

Much before the visit to the Russian Sochi, the Turkish president promised to raise the issue of Karabakh at the meeting with his Russian counterpart, saying that “much depends on Putin” in the conflict settlement.

According to director of the Oriental Studies Institute at the Armenian Academy of Sciences Ruben Safrastyan, the Turkish president admitted he was unable to talk Moscow over. “It looks like the Russian president let him know that Turkey has nothing to do in Karabakh. By the way, I spoke of it before the Sochi meeting. Moscow will never allow Turkey and Azerbaijan strengthen their tandem at the expense of its ally in Transcaucasia. Besides, Russia is an OSCE Minsk Group co-chair, which is the only mediator format to settle the Karabakh conflict, and it will not be good for it if another mediator comes to the scene at the talks,” Safrastyan said in an interview to EADaily.

To remind, the official Ankara supports Baku in the Karabakh conflict saying that Armenia occupied the Azerbaijani territories. Besides, since 1993, Turkey has its border with Armenia closed.

Paradoxically, by his statement, the Turkish president broke myths alive in some political circles in Armenia that there are some “backdoor agreements” between Moscow and Ankara allegedly aimed against Yerevan and its interests. The main target of supposed deals in the “geopolitical intricacies” invented by Armenian talking heads is, as a rule, Nagorno-Karabakh. Evidently, after Erdogan’s statement, criticists of the Russian policies will have to invent other scenarios.