TURKEY WARMS TO ARMENIA

Canberra Times
September 15, 2008 Monday
Australia

The pace of the thaw taking place between Turkey and Armenia is nothing
short of breathtaking. Much attention has been focused on Turkish
President Abdullah Gul having attended a football match in Armenia’s
capital, Yerevan, at the invitation of his Armenian counterpart,
Serzh Sarkisian, but the two sides are moving beyond symbolism.

A deal has been struck under which Armenian power stations will supply
electricity to Turkey, and state-run Turkish Radio Television has
signed a cooperation pact with Armenia 1 TV.

Gul has even professed full confidence that the issue which caused
Turkey to close its border with Armenia in 1993, the latter’s war on
Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, can be resolved with
relative ease.

It is depressing to compare all this with the lethargy that typifies
intra-Arab cooperation. Arab governments are incapable of joint
action. They talk about unity, but they connive against one another
with neither mercy nor shame and regard one another’s citizens as
hostile aliens.If successful, Turkey’s charm offensive will show how
soft power can undo the complications wrought by the harder variety.