New ‘Bridge of Hope’ Links Turkey, Azerbaijan

Under the watchful eye of Armenian gunners on a mountain ridge three miles away, tens of thousands of Turks and Azerbaijanis celebrated the opening Thursday of the first land link between Turkey and one of the emerging Turkic republics of the former Soviet Union.

Turkish Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel brought eight Cabinet ministers and 52 members of Parliament with him to open the “Bridge of Hope,” a thinly disguised message to Armenia to stop its advance into the Azerbaijani territory of Nakhichevan.

“The era of winning land by force is over. Anybody not realizing this will regret it,” Demirel told the crowd milling on the dusty plain by the Aras River below the snow-capped peak of Mt. Ararat.

Demirel has repeatedly vowed that Turkey will not attack to save its Azerbaijani Turkic cousins from further defeat at the hands of Armenia in the Caucasus, the worst ethnic conflict resulting from the breakup of the Soviet Union.

But Demirel’s spokesman, Omer Tarkan, told reporters on a plane following Demirel to the small Nakhichevan airstrip that “we are ready to do everything short of military involvement.”

Under treaties signed in the 1920s, Turkey must be consulted over any change in the status of Nakhichevan, wedged between Turkey and Iran and cut off from the rest of Azerbaijan by Armenia. But the territory has a border with Iran far longer than its seven-mile frontier with Turkey.

The Ankara government’s patience has been stretched by Armenian advances beyond recognized borders this month, especially during 10 days of fighting in Nakhichevan, three miles from the Bridge of Hope. Demirel’s visit was partly a result of growing public pressure in Turkey for the government to do something.