Davutoğlu to visit Moscow later this week

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ahmet Davutoğlu and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, were both on the Greek island of Corfu over the weekend, which was the venue for both a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council and a foreign ministerial gathering of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).



Davutoğlu and Lavrov, who will meet on Thursday, when the former pays a working visit to Moscow, did not have an opportunity to have a bilateral meeting in Corfu. Nonetheless, Ankara has welcomed the fact that NATO and Russia on Saturday resumed formal cooperation on broad security threats despite failing to bridge major differences over Georgia in their first high-level talks since the war in the Caucasus region.



"Turkey has always favored friendly relations and a cooperation mechanism between NATO and Russia. Although the meeting in Corfu has symbolic importance, a path to dialogue has been opened now," Turkish diplomatic sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Today's Zaman.



Davutoğlu's visit to Moscow will come days before a tentatively planned meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders expected to take place in Russia in mid-July. Diplomatic sources in Ankara, meanwhile, declined to elaborate on the agenda of the meeting between Davutoğlu and Lavrov, only saying that all kinds of issues that are of common interest for the two countries, ranging from energy to trade, will be on the agenda of the talks.



Last week, a US negotiator announced that mediators hope to clinch an agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the principles of a peace deal on breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh at talks tentatively planned for mid-July in Russia. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza said he and his fellow mediators from France and Russia were "shooting for" a full framework agreement by the end of 2009. But he conceded the risk of a last-minute breakdown of the kind that derailed earlier efforts to broker an agreement between the Caucasus neighbors, who continue to exchange fire over their tense frontline 15 years after major hostilities ended.



Davutoğlu, meanwhile, is expected to pay a two-day bilateral visit to Bucharest, Romania, on July 3-4 following his visit to Moscow, Today's Zaman learned from reliable sources.