Turkish leader’s visit ‘message to Russia and Armenia’ (UPDATED)
BAKU – Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s upcoming visit to Azerbaijan "is a message to Russia and Armenia", an Azerbaijani analyst has said.
President Gul is expected to arrive in Baku on August 16. The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh and visa regulations between the two countries will be among issues high on agenda.
Elkhan Shahinoglu, the head of the Atlas research center, told Radio Liberty that Gul’s visit comes at about the same time as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Armenia.
"Abdullah Gul’s visit to Azerbaijan is important from this viewpoint. Messages are being sent to Russia and Armenia that Turkey will not scale down its support for Azerbaijan."
Shahinoglu said, further, that it is time to resolve the visa issue between Baku and Ankara.
"On the visa issue there are certain points regarding Iran that Azerbaijani authorities are refraining from," the analyst concluded.
"If visas are waived for Turkish citizens, the same has to be done for Iranian nationals, because the Iranian government has lifted visas for Azerbaijani citizens. But Turkey is Azerbaijan’s strategic partner, and in this respect I think that time is ripe for resolving the issue of visas applied to Turkish citizens."
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