NEWS.am continues publishing a series of comments on the advisability of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s visit to Turkey. The Armenian leader is to return his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul’s visit to Armenia. However, pressured by Azerbaijan, Turkey started setting preconditions for normalizing its relations with Armenia, particularly, the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

In his turn, the Armenian leader stated he would visit Turkey provided the Armenian-Turkish border was reopened or a relevant process was under way.

Below are Nagorno-Karabakh experts’ opinions of the situation.

Talking to NEWS.am, Vahram Atanesyan, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, NKR Parliament, said that “Turkey is not viewing the problem in the context of the present situation.” According to him, official Ankara believes the reopening of the Armenian-Turkish border to be such a vital issue for Armenia that the country will be ready for major concessions. However, Turkey should have put up with the fact that the Azerbaijan-dictated policy of “bringing Armenia to its knees” proved ineffective and “indecent of a country seeking EU membership.”

Atanesyan believes that reopening the borders and establishing diplomatic relations “is only a starting point for both countries seeking to normalize their relations, and the Turkish side is presenting it as an epoch-making event,” and its “counterproductive” attitude to the process is evidence thereof.

“Of importance is also the factor of Azerbaijan’s opposition, which is evidence of Turkey, and especially Azerbaijan, being failure-states. Both the states are unable to normalize their relations with Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, to say nothing of the Armenian people. However, this situation cannot be an everlasting one,” Atanesyan said. He pointed out that, to have influence on the South Caucasus, Turkey has to normalize relations with Armenia. One has the impression that too little time remains before the return visit for the process to show any essential progress or at least any prospects for it. “I do no think President Serzh Sargsyan will visit Turkey, it is desirable that the visit take place though.”

Speaking of the Armenian President’s possible visit to Turkey, the former deputy foreign minister of NKR Masis Mailyan pointed out that the Ankara-Yerevan relations are not so good “for a top-level visit to Turkey to be considered necessary.”

According to him, “the international PR over the normalization of bilateral relations is still working in Turkey’s favor.” “Specifically, Turkish diplomats succeeded in neutralizing the threat of the United States recognizing the Armenian Genocide this April. The public Armenian-Turkish dialogue, as well as Ankara’s appeals to other countries for not interfering in the process, proved to be the most substantial argument,” Mailyan said.

Good neighborly relations should be established, but “it is advisable now to work at a different level… Nagorno-Karabakh does not fully trust Turkey’s initiatives.”

Mailyan stressed that Ankara’s practical steps can prove the sincerity of Turkey’s intentions to normalize relations with Armenia: giving up the demand for Armenian territorial concessions to Azerbaijan; establishing diplomatic relations with Armenia and reopening the land border. “The steps are supposed to show us who we are dealing with: a country, which is still guided by the Pan-Turkism doctrine or with a modern-day Turkey, which is seeking EU membership and accepting the EU’s system of values,” Mailyan said.