Turkish president to meet his Azeri, Armenian counterparts in Prague

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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Gul will meet Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan in Prague, where the leaders are scheduled to attend an Eastern Partnership summit, diplomats told the Anatolian Agency. 

The meetings come as diplomatic traffic intensifies in efforts aimed at solving long-standing disputes in the region.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will also meet Aliyev in the capital Baku on May 13 and Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on May 16.

Turkey and Armenia, under Switzerland's mediation, agreed last month on a "road map" deal for U.S.-backed talks that could lead to the normalizing of ties and the opening of their border.

Ankara cut diplomatic links with Yerevan and closed the border in a show of support to Azerbaijan in 1993 after 20 percent of its territory was invaded by Armenia in the disputed region -- a frozen conflict legacy of the Soviet Union known as Nagorno-Karabakh.

Newly appointed Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Araz Azimov, deputy foreign minister of Azerbaijan, which has been disturbed by the Ankara-Yerevan thaw, on Monday. Davutoglu met Azimov to discuss Azeri concerns over the roadmap, officials said.

Baku, which has strong cultural and historic ties with Turkey, says opening the border before the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the country’s occupied territories would run counter to its national interests. Some media reports suggested that Azerbaijan, a supplier of oil and gas to Europe, might even halt the sale of natural gas to Turkey.

CLINTON MEETS AZERI, ARMENIAN COUNTERPARTS
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also met separately early Tuesday with her counterparts from Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks on energy security and the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Clinton met with Armenia’s Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian, and held talks later in the day with Azerbaijan’s lead diplomat Elmar Mammadyarov.

During his meeting with Clinton, Nalbandian thanked the U.S. State Department for "all constant efforts to help to support the normalization process with Turkey and peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict".

The top U.S. diplomat's meetings aim at laying the groundwork for the meeting between Aliyev and Sargsyan in Prague.

The United States and Russia, along with France, are co-chairs of the Minsk Group, which is seeking to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.