The Turkish South Stream will guarantee further freezing of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Head of the Center for Euro-Atlantic and Defense of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies Grigory Tischenko said in an online interview to ArmInfo.
"I think Turkey's policy in the Black Sea and neighboring regions will be based on three pillars: ignoring and eliminating the Nagorno- Karabakh problem, agreeing to be a "moderator" for Crimean Tatars in exchange for Russia's allowing Turkey's peaceful return to the Balkans, especially now that Russian gas will run there through Turkey," Tischenko said.
"Russia is not forcing Turkey to become too close with it even though it welcomes such steps. The Russians have had quite good relations with the Turks for two decades already.
After the collapse of the Soviet, the latter came into the Russian consumer market and have behaved quite well there since then. But Russia will never be as close with Turkey as it is with Armenia. Simply Turkey is a good economic and trade partner. As far as the refusal to build the South Stream is concerned, it was a forced reply to the West's destructive pressure over Ukraine," Tischenko said.
The interview was taken with the support of the UK Embassy in Armenia in the framework of the Region Research Center's Topical Dialogues for Armenian Media project.