A TURKEY-ARMENIA RECONCILIATION?
Los Angeles Times, CA
April 25 2008
Not quite, but recent niceties stir faint hope.
History can comfort or afflict us, and affliction was the order of the
day Thursday as Armenians around the world commemorating the genocide
of their people by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1917 were met by
Turks protesting that the genocide never took place.
The argument over remembrance and denial of the Armenian genocide
has in recent years moved from France to the U.S. Congress and
now to Israel, which faces its own moral and political dilemmas
in deciding whether to debate the issue in the Knesset. Turkey is
strongly lobbying to prevent such a debate. Like the United States,
Israel is now torn between its commitment to confront genocide deniers
of all kinds and its geopolitical interest in maintaining relations
with its only Muslim ally.
It’s a lose-lose proposition for any nation involved in the dispute,
and for the millions of Turks and Armenians alive today who will
have to continue to live next to each other. It’s a winner, however,
for Russia, which has been competing with the United States for
influence in Armenia and which has leverage over the former Soviet
republic’s economy.
Given their rock-hard positions, there is little chance that the
genocide issue will soon be resolved to the satisfaction of either
side, but there is, for the first time, a faint hope for a thaw in
relations between modern Turkey and Armenia. In Yerevan, President
Serge Sargsyan took office this month after a deeply flawed election
in which he promised to improve ties with Ankara. And although the two
countries have no diplomatic relations, Turkish President Abdullah
Gul was among the first to congratulate him — and to express his
desire to normalize relations.
These meager niceties between longtime foes should be
extended. Turkey’s offer to create a panel of historians to investigate
the atrocities of 1915 remains objectionable as long as it continues
to deny that the slaughter of Armenians constituted genocide. Still,
there are areas for cooperation. Turkey could temporarily reopen its
closed frontier with Armenia — with the caveat that it could shut
the border again if relations sour.
A friendly, democratic government in Ankara could help Yerevan
rebuild its frayed ties with the West, improve its economy and,
eventually, negotiate peace with Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave
of Nagorno-Karabakh. Demonstrating the political maturity to pursue
rapprochement with Armenia could bring Turkey closer to its goal of
joining the European Union. History need not be destiny.