THE TIES THAT DIVIDE: TURKEY AND ARMENIA
The Economist
June 17, 2006
U.S. Edition
Trying to improve a troubled relationship
Locals dream of reopening the frontier between Turkey and Armenia
NAIF ALIBEYOGLU, mayor of Kars, a town bordering Armenia, has a
dream. He pictures a party of Turkish officials embracing their
Armenian counterparts in the middle of an ancient bridge over the
river that divides their countries. Reduced by war and neglect to
a pair of greyish stone stumps on opposite banks of the river, its
condition is an apt symbol for relations between the two countries.
The bridge, part of the historic site of Ani (see box), would in theory
be easy to reconstruct. Fixing the broader relationship between Turkey
and Armenia promises to be a great deal harder.
Turkey was among the first countries to recognise Armenia when it
emerged from the Soviet Union’s wreckage in 1991. But bitter arguments
over the fate of the Ottoman Armenians-did the mass killings of 1915
constitute genocide?-together with lingering border disputes have
stood in the way of formal ties. The estrangement deepened in 1993
when Turkey sealed its land frontier with Armenia (while still allowing
direct air travel). The Turks acted after Armenian forces had occupied
a chunk of Azerbaijan in a war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Years of secret talks between Turkish and Armenian diplomats-the
latest of which were held in Vienna in March- have failed to ease
tensions. And this is despite vigorous backing for renewed ties from
both America and the European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join.
Mr Alibeyoglu, who is from Turkey’s ruling AK party, says the
people of Kars are paying the price. With average annual incomes of
only $823, Kars is among the country’s poorest and most neglected
provinces. Yet before the cold war Kars was among the young republic’s
most progressive places. It is vividly evoked in "Snow", a novel by
Turkey’s most famous writer, Orhan Pamuk. Locals would attend the
theatre and ballet and dine on caviar and champagne. Such tastes were
inherited from former Russian occupiers, whose traces can still be
detected in the grandeur of its Tsarist-era architecture.
Mr Alibeyoglu, whose penchant for wine and naughty sculptures would
have gone unnoticed in those days, now sees a chance to reverse
his city’s decline, but only if Turkey unconditionally reopens its
borders. By doing this, Turkey would regain some moral high ground,
as well as securing access to strategic markets in Central Asia
and beyond. Kars could even become a regional hub in the Caucasus,
especially if a rail link to Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, were
restored. Trade volumes between the two countries, now averaging
a measly $100m a year, almost all of it conducted via Georgia,
should soar.
There is more. As many as 200,000 members of the Armenian diaspora
return to their homeland every year. Many would like to cross the
border into Turkey in order to visit Armenian archaeological sites.
The tourist trade could be worth millions of dollars. "They would also
meet Turks and realise they aren’t quite as evil as they imagined,"
adds Kaan Soyak, co-chairman of the Turkish-Armenian Business
Development Council.
But how to break the diplomatic deadlock? Mr Alibeyoglu’s answer is to
take matters into his own hands. In 2000 he drove to the Armenian town
of Gyumri, where he appeared on television with his fellow mayor and
appealed for peace. This autumn, Mr Alibeyoglu will host a festival
that features, for a second time, performers from Armenia, Georgia
and Azerbaijan. The Armenians will have to make a tortuous journey via
the Turkish cities of Trabzon and Istanbul. But the mayor hopes that,
one day soon, their journey will be much quicker.