Turkey and Armenia
Friends and neighbours
Sep 25th 2008 | ANKARA AND YEREVAN
>From The Economist print edition
Rising hopes of better relations between two historic enemies
KEMAL ATATURK , father of modern Turkey, rescued hundreds of Armenian women
and children from mass slaughter by Ottoman forces during and after the
first world war. This untold story, which is sure to surprise many of today’s
Turks, is one of many collected by the Armenian genocide museum in Yerevan
that "will soon be brought to light on our website," promises Hayk Demoyan,
its director.
His project is one more example of shifting relations between Turkey and
Armenia. On September 6th President Abdullah Gul became the first Turkish
leader to visit Armenia when he attended a football match. Mr Gul’s decision
to accept an invitation from Armenia’s president, Serzh Sarkisian, has
raised expectations that Turkey may establish diplomatic ties and open the
border it closed during the 1990s fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan
over Nagorno-Karabakh. The two foreign ministers were planning to meet in
New York this week. Armenia promises to recognise Turkey’s borders and to
allow a commission of historians to investigate the fate of the Ottoman
Armenians.
Reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia could tilt the balance of power in
the Caucasus. Russia is Armenia’s closest regional ally. It has two bases
and around 2,000 troops there. The war in Georgia has forced Armenia to
rethink its position. Some 70% of its supplies flow through Georgia, and
these were disrupted by Russian bombing. Peace with Turkey would give
Armenia a new outside link. Some think Russia would be happy too. "It would
allow Russia to marginalise and lean harder on Georgia," argues Alexander
Iskandaryan, director of the Caucasus Media Institute.
Mending fences with Armenia would bolster Turkey’s regional clout. And it
might also help to kill a resolution proposed by the American Congress to
call the slaughter of the Armenians in 1915 genocide. That makes the
Armenian diaspora, which is campaigning for genocide recognition, unhappy.
Some speak of a "Turkish trap" aimed at rewriting history to absolve Turkey
of wrongdoing. Indeed, hawks in Turkey are pressing Armenia to drop all talk
of genocide.
Even more ambitiously, the hawks want better ties with Armenia to be tied
anew to progress over Nagorno-Karabakh. But at least Mr Gul seems determined
to press ahead. "If we allow the dynamics that were set in motion by the
Yerevan match to slip away, we may have to wait another 15-20 years for a
similar chance to arise," he has said.