EurasiaNet, NY
Feb 19 2008
ON ELECTION DAY, TURKEY OUTWEIGHS POLITICS IN BORDER VILLAGE
Yigal Schleifer 2/19/08
Not far from Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Georgia, at an age-old
trading crossroads, lies the village of Shirakavan. The political
excitement connected to the country’s February 19 presidential vote
commands little attention here. Rather, the focus is on the
day-to-day struggle to survive and how, if possible, Armenia’s
relations with Turkey could play a role.
On election day, several men are standing in the snow outside of the
village’s school, which serves as a polling station. Among them is
Shirakavan’s mayor, Gevorg Haroutiunian, who describes how many of
the village’s farmers cannot reach their land, because it lies near
the closed Turkish border.
"The fact that the border is closed causes damage on both sides,"
says the mayor.
It is a problem that is visually immediately at hand. A tall
watchtower and several unmanned artillery positions look out over
Shirakavan’s snow-covered border area. Off in the distance, a
pencil-thin minaret rises from a mosque on the Turkish side.
"If we can have some diplomatic relations with Turkey, we could have
a positive dynamic here," adds Haroutiunian.
The diplomatic stalemate with Turkey certainly comes at a cost for
Armenia. Studies estimate that the country could be losing as much as
$400 million in annual trade because of the closed border between the
two states. Meanwhile, various regional projects, such as the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the soon-to-be-completed
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, are working to further deepen Armenia’s
political and economic isolation among its neighbors. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Although it didn’t get as much attention as fighting poverty or
corruption, the question of Armenia’s relations with Turkey lingered
throughout the presidential campaign, but it was often used more as a
way to smear a candidate than as a chance to propose ways forward on
the issue.
No dramatic proposals for change have come from either of the race’s
two key candidates – Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian and former
President Levon Ter-Petrosian.
Though he has said he supports Turkey’s European Union membership
bid, Sarkisian is expected to continue the policies of outgoing
President Robert Kocharian, Armenian analysts say.
And while Ter-Petrosian has promised to be "pro-active" on the issue,
Tevan Poghosyan, executive director of the International Center for
Human Development, a Yerevan-based think tank, notes that actions
taken during his 1991-1998 presidency resulted in no breakthroughs.
"If you are interested in opening up the relations, don’t look here,"
Poghosyan says. "The key is on the Turkish side. It’s not dependent
on what the candidates say on the issue."
Despite various attempts over the years to get Ankara and Yerevan to
the negotiating table, other experts believe that relations between
the two neighbors will remain frozen for the foreseeable future, with
the Armenian genocide issue and the question of Nagorno-Karabakh
continuing to stand as major roadblocks in the way of any progress.
[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
"Normalization of relations has become a magic word that keeps
getting repeated, but nothing is done about it," says Ruben
Safrastyan, director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at
Armenia’s National Academy of Sciences in Yerevan and an expert on
Turkey.
"There is no possibility for state-to-state diplomacy right now. We
need to take things down a step to track-two [non-governmental]
diplomacy. In this respect, Armenian diplomacy needs to be more
proactive and we lack that proactivity right now."
Adds Safrastyan: "There are elements in Turkey that are trying to
have dialogue with Armenia, and we need to have a dialogue with those
elites."
"There are some elements about each other that we know, but there are
many that we don’t know and we are not even bothering to get to the
table and learn about it," comments the International Center for
Human Development’s Poghosyan, whose organization sponsored a series
of meetings in 2001-2004 between Turkish and Armenian academics,
journalists and other opinion shapers.
"Our knowledge of each other is very symbolic," he continues. "The
public on both sides is dealing in stereotypes."
For now, much of the impasse between Turkey and Armenia revolves
around the genocide issue. Ankara refuses to recognize the mass
killings of Armenians in Eastern Turkey during the late Ottoman
period as genocide. Instead, it has called for the convening of a
joint commission of historians to decide on the issue before any
negotiations on normalizing relations can start.
Armenians see this as an unacceptable precondition, one that asks too
much of them.
"I think this topic, the Armenian genocide, could be the ground for
dialogue, but without preconditions," says Hayk Demoyan, director of
Yerevan’s Museum-Institute of the Armenian Genocide.
"We can’t forget our memories in order to have better relations. This
can’t be the cost."
But both Poghosyan and Safrastyan say they believe slow progress in
being made in Turkey regarding the genocide issue, which may enable
the two neighbors to move beyond the problematic subject.
"I am optimistic, and it has to do with developments in Turkish
society," Safrastyan says. "I believe that in five or ten years,
Turkish society will start asking more about the genocide issue. This
development could end up having leverage over Turkish diplomacy."
Meanwhile, 20 kilometers from the border village of Shirakavan, in
the town of Gyumri, a onetime Soviet industrial powerhouse, many
locals see trade as a way to move past the political issues.
"We should see trade as separate from the genocide issue," says
Eduoard Haroian, owner of a shiny hardware store that sells
German-made power tools. "One is a political issue and the other is
an economic issue."
"In my opinion, most of the people here are ready for the border to
be open," continues Haroian. "We have a saying: if one has an enemy,
it’s always harder to make a living."
Editor’s Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance reporter who covers
Turkey and the South Caucasus.