ACKNOWLEDGING A PROBLEM: DOES RECOGNIZING AN ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING?
By Sergei Markedonov
Russia Profile, Russia
Oct 16 2007
This month, the "Armenian Issue" once again became one of the main
items on the international agenda. A new initiative by the United
States to acknowledge the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire has seriously complicated the situation in the Middle East
and Central Asia.
On Wednesday, Oct. 11, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the
U.S. House of Representatives passed resolution #106. This resolution
calls the massacre of Armenians by the Turks in 1915 a "genocide."
Steps towards similar resolutions have been made before, but this is
the first time such an initiative has had sizeable support within
the American political establishment. And even this decision was
not unanimous – 27 members of the committee voted for the resolution
while 21 members voted against it.
Nevertheless, in the middle of November this resolution will be
reviewed by Congress and the chances of it being passed are higher
than ever. Of the 435 members of the House of Representatives,
226 of them participated in writing the resolution. On the night of
Oct. 11, the Yerkir Media TV Company, which has close ties to the ARF
(the Armenian Revolutionary Federation) Dashnaktsutiun – the oldest
political party in Armenia – broadcast the "historic" meeting of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs.
According to Yerevan-based political scientist David Petrosyan,
"the discussion demonstrated that the majority of the committee
members are well acquainted with this subject; they presented a
number of substantial arguments in defense of their position. This is
the result of work by the most powerful and authoritative Armenian
lobbying organizations in the United States: the Armenian Assembly
of America and the Armenian National Committee of America." This
discussion also showed that, although the leaders of the Armenian
government talk about strategic relations with Russia, the "western
vector" of Armenian foreign policy is very important.
Mixed Loyalties
Today the Russian expert community generally accepts that Armenia
is Russia’s most reliable ally in the South Caucasus. The prospect
of Armenia reorientating toward the United States or the European
Union countries is either not considered at all or thought to be
insignificant. However, outside the cozy world of political cliches
and ritual declarations of the centuries-old "Russian-Armenian"
friendship, it is obvious that Armenia’s foreign policy is much
more complicated. Strictly speaking, Armenia does not need to tend
towards the West, because it was never an "anti-Western" country,
unlike Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko or Saparmurat Niyazov’s
Turkmenistan. The presence of a pro-Western element in the history
of post-Soviet Armenia has always been an important factor in the
republic’s development.
Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia stepped out on
to the international stage and learned, with the help of its large
diaspora, to appeal to global public opinion and help turn this opinion
in a pro-Armenian direction. On May 17, 1999, the U.S. Senate passed
a resolution condemning attacks on peaceful civilians and firing at
unarmed civilians in reaction to a "cleanup" operation carried out by
troops of the Soviet Union’s interior ministry in the Armenian villages
of Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1992, Congress passed Amendment 907 to the
Freedom Support Act, which prohibited direct U.S. government aid to
Azerbaijan. And although today many provisions of this amendment have
been significantly "corrected," it has not yet been cancelled. Azeri
President, Ilham Aliyev demanded the cancellation of Amendment 907
during his visit to Washington last year. Despite the fact that the oil
lobby stands for complete cancellation of the amendment, the Armenian
lobby (primarily the Armenian National Committee of America – ANCA)
has been successful in its counter-efforts. Over the last 15 years,
the United States has provided more than $1 billion of economic
assistance to Armenia. More than 1 million ethnic Armenians reside
in the United States.
In July 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to guarantee
that no import or export funds would be used to support the proposed
construction of a railroad connecting the Turkish city of Kars to
the Georgian cities of Akhalkalaki and Tbilisi and ending up in the
Azeri capital Baku, bypassing Armenia. House Resolution 5068 says that
"taxpayers’ money will not be used for a greater isolation of Armenia,
which still suffers from a double blockade imposed by Turkey and
Azerbaijan." Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-New York), one of the congressmen
who supported this document, stated: "these measures will promote
stability in the Southern Caucasus, while financial support for such
a railroad construction project would contradict the US’s interests."
Now in 2007, the time has come for the issue that is the most important
for the world’s Armenian community – recognizing the genocide of 1915
and including this issue in the U.S. foreign policy agenda. The vote on
Oct. 11 has already received a negative reaction from Turkey. Officials
in Ankara hinted that the vote could decrease the amount of aid Turkey
provides for U.S. troops in Iraq; as U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates has noted, 70 percent of all air cargo and 30 percent of fuel
for U.S. forces in Iraq transits through Turkey. Moreover, President
George W. Bush has also strongly recommended that Congress not pass
this resolution.
Although the president cannot strongarm the congressmen into voting
his way, both the congressmen and the senators must understand how
important the Turkish factor is for U.S. policy both in the Middle
East and in the Black Sea region, particularly since there is already
an ethnic group separating Ankara and Washington – the Kurds. The
United States supports a de facto Kurdish state in the territory
of Iraq while Ankara considers Iraqi Kurdistan a nest of terrorists
providing support to the Kurdish separatist movement inside Turkey.
Turkey has the second-largest army in NATO, which is well trained
and prepared. Its special services are capable of liquidating their
foes and also brilliantly discredited politically the longstanding
Kurd leader Abdullah Ocalan.
The Turkish dilemma
Yerevan is accusing Turkey of committing genocide against Armenians
during World War I, when about 1.5 million Armenians residing in the
territory of the Ottoman Empire were killed. Turkey, in its turn, does
not agree that the deaths were genocide, claiming that actually the
number of Armenians killed was much smaller and that these deaths
were a result of inter-ethnic conflict. Even the Armenians do not
agree on the future of Armenian-Turkish relations. The first leader
of the Armenian Republic, Levon-Ter Petrossian, was willing to give
up overemphasizing the tragedy in favor of prospects for future
positive relations with Turkey. Despite the fact Robert Kocharyan,
Armenia’s second president, has taken a much firmer stand toward its
western neighbor, Yerevan has given up any territorial claims against
Turkey. Even the Armenian diaspora is split on the genocide as well
as on territorial claims and reparations.
According to well-known Yerevan political scientist Tigran Martirosyan,
"the current demands of the Armenian people regarding Western Armenia
[part of modern Turkey] are based on the world community accepting the
statute ‘The Necessity of Liquidating the Consequences of Genocide’
as an international norm. And this, in its turn, is based on charters
of international tribunals, resolutions of the UN General Assembly
and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, which was adopted on Dec. 9, 1948 and came into force on
Jan. 12, 1951."
In the meanwhile, Turkish historians and politicians studying the
Armenian issue have their own serious counter-arguments. According to
Professor Halil Berktay, "this is a very serious issue. It is a mistake
made by the Turkish Republic. Turkey is taking too long to determine
its official political and legal position on the Ottoman Empire. Turkey
has not quite realized and has not completely adopted the fact that
it overthrew the Ottoman regime and established a modern republic
in its place. And this contains a very serious contradiction. The
republic cannot be held accountable for these events… The Turkish
Republic today can say one simple thing: the republic was founded
in 1923. The events in question took place in 1915. The army of the
Turkish Republic and its governmental institutions had nothing to
do with these events. The Turkish Republic is a new state. From the
legal point of view, it is not the legal successor of either the
Ottoman government or the Unity and Progress party government [the
Young Turks]." Today many Turkish researchers of Armenian-Turkish
relations argue for depoliticizing the problem of 1915, leaving it
for historians. However, many scientists, bureaucrats and politicians
in Turkey consider even statements like Berktay’s to be extremely
"liberal," and Taner Akcam, the first Turkish historian to use the
term "genocide" to characterize the 1915 tragedy, is now teaching at
the University of Michigan, far away from his historical homeland.
At first glance, Ankara could have easily chosen to say farewell to
the past. It would have been enough to simply develop the thesis of
"liberal" Turkish historians that there is no legal succession between
the Turkish Republic and the Ottoman Empire. Such a stance has been
one of the key ideological points of modern Turkey since the time of
the republic’s founder, Kemal Ataturk. Once such a declaration was
made, the Turkish government could have condemned the Ottomans and
their killing of Armenians. Moreover, Ankara could have accepted the
"pass" from Yerevan when it gave up its territorial claims to Western
Armenia, which today is under Turkish jurisdiction.
By accepting the 1915 Armenian genocide today, Ankara could have
closed the issue it forever.
However, acknowledging the Armenian genocide and saying farewell to
the past is not so simple. Kemalist Turkey, which denounces the legacy
of the Ottoman regime in many ways, still carries out the familiar
old foreign and internal policies. This is true for the conflict over
Cyprus, relations with Greece and Bulgaria, the policy in the territory
of the former Yugoslavia and the policy toward ethnic minorities in
addition to the problems with Armenia. Moreover, throughout the 20th
century, the Turkish Republic was able to strengthen its position
in the world by skillfully manipulating the conflicts between the
world’s great powers, which is why Armenia and the Armenian diaspora
has expressed alarm about Turkey’s possible entry into the European
Union. Turkey has used NATO resources completely to its advantage,
without worrying too much about making its actions comply with the
high standards of the organization.
Today Turkey has its own interests in the South Caucasus and can turn
the issue of acknowledging the genocide of Armenians into an item
up for negotiation. Recognizing the genocide could become part of
the negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh, since Azerbaijan is Turkey’s
strategic partner. It is quite possible that Ankara will suggest an
"exchange of acknowledgments" between Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On March 26, 1998, then-President Heydar Aliyev issued a Presidential
Decree "On the genocide of Azeris." March 31 was proclaimed as the
Day of Genocide of the Azeris. The decree included such declarations
as "the dismemberment of the Azerbaijani people," the "division
of historical lands" of the Azerbaijanis, and the "occupation"
of Azerbaijan after the Gyulistan (1813) and Turkmanchai (1828)
peace treaties, which ended two Russo-Persian wars. The historical
responsibility for the genocide of Azeris was laid upon the Russian
Empire, the Soviet Union, Armenia and the Armenian people. Thus, it is
also possible that in return for acknowledging the Armenian genocide
of 1915, Turkey will ask Armenia, with the help of pressure from the
United States, to acknowledge the "Azeri genocide." Only time will
tell whether Washington will be ready for such a turn. And not just
time, but also the situation around Iran, the dynamics in Iraq and
the continued upheaval in the wider Caucasus region.
Sergei Markedonov is the head of the Interethnic Relations Department
at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis in Moscow.
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