ArmeniaNow On February 2, Kars municipality Majlis passed a decree on dismantling the monument symbolizing Armenian-Turkish friendship. The construction of that monument called the Monument to Humanity started in 2008 during the activated contacts between the two countries on an official level.

However, the construction was left unfinished, and during his recent visit to Kars Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the monument “a freak”, and said that “structures not corresponding to historic-architectural style [of Kars] have to be torn down” .

Kars, a medieval Armenian capital, currently has a large Azeri population, which has repeatedly given extremely negative responses to the perspective of establishing bilateral diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey and opening the Armenian border.

Acts of protest turned into rallies, marches and demonstrations during which concerns were expressed over the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement process that could be to the detriment of Baku's interests in the Karabakh issue. Turkish authorities kept assuring that such a scenario was impossible, however “Azeri concerns” were still continuously voiced.

According to Kars Mayor Nevzat Bozkusha, a tender will be announced in the nearest future to determine which company would handle the demolition process. He said that after taking down the monument the area would be beautified “in accordance with the history and architecture of Kars”.

Nonetheless, no one doubts that the decision to dismantle, just as Erdogan's definition of the monument as “a freak”, have nothing to do with the artistic-compositional solutions of the piece but have everything to do with its ideology.

The thing is that Turkey's current mission – as the main proponent and defender of the interests of Islamic states on the international arena - has conditioned the emergence of opinions that its political leadership is gradually deviating from pan-Turkic ideology toward pan-Islamic.

During the past eight years Turkish authorities have put in colossal efforts in order to consolidate their country's position not so much in Turkic, but a larger-scale – Islamic – international community.

Ankara's political course today is called neo-ottomanism. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu, delivering a speech to Justice and Development Party members, stated: “There exists heritage left by the Ottoman Empire. They call us neo-ottomans. And yes, we are “new ottomans”. We are forced to deal with our neighbor countries. We even go to Africa. Super powers are watching us, perplexed”.

In his speech the minister also admitted: “I have made an assignment – whichever African country president of France Sarkozy goes to, he has to see a Turkish Embassy building, the Turkish flag every time he lifts his eyes. I have ordered to rent buildings for our embassies in the best areas. ”

During the 2007 parliamentary elections pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party once again won with the support of almost half of the voters and practically crushing the Republican National Party founded by Kemal Ataturk.

It is based on these new tendencies that opinions are circulated today about the gradual deviation of Turkey’s political leadership from pan-Turkic ideology towards pan-Islamic or, in other words, neo-ottoman.

Turkish authorities have practically always let Azeri authorities know that some foreign policy tactical shifts cannot anyhow reflect on the sphere of relations of “two Turkic brother countries with Armenia”. They always stressed that the policy of the countries is two poles of one pan-Turkic axes.

In September of 2010, in Istanbul, at the ceremony of signing Turkish-Azeri agreement on establishing a Strategic Cooperation Council, Erdogan stated: “We are conquering the desired goal and even a crest in Turkish-Azeri cooperation defined by Heydar Aliyev as ‘one nation, two states’”.

Hence, the decision to demolish the Kars monument is a demonstration of such cooperation, the “Turkish response to Azeri suspicions”.

There is also another aspect. This year parliamentary elections will be held in Turkey, so the ruling party is counting greatly on the support of Turkey's Azeri citizens, as there is no doubt that during the campaign period the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement process will become a subject of domestic political speculations.