THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: TURKEY AND ARMENIA PAVE WY FOR HSTORIC ACORDS
armradio.am
02.04.2009 13:21
Turkey and Armenia could soon announce a deal aimed at reopening their
border and restoring relations, a move that could help stabilize a
region that’s increasingly important as a transit route for oil and
gas, the Wall Street Journal reports, quoting diplomats.
The timing of the deal is being choreographed with the schedule of U.S.
President Barack Obama, who visits Turkey next week, these people say.
The Turkish and Armenian governments have agreed on terms to open
formal talks in three areas: opening and fixing borders, restoring
diplomatic relations and setting up commissions to look at disputes,
including one on the tense history between the two nations.
Normalizing relations between Turkey and Armenia would "create a new
and positive dynamic" in relations across the region, "as well as
in developing the economic and transport links we have been pursuing
ever since the collapse of the former Soviet Union," said U.S. Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Matthew J Bryza, the State Department’s
point man in the Caucasus.
Mr. Bryza travels to Azerbaijan Thursday to discuss how a
Turkish-Armenian agreement could help revive efforts for a settlement
on Nagorno-Karabakh.
Announcement of a Turkish-Armenian pact is also being influenced by
Mr. Obama’s campaign promise to support a Congressional resolution
that would rec ognize as genocide the Ottoman Empire’s 1915 killing
of up to 1.5 million Armenians in what is now central and eastern
Turkey. Turkey fiercely denies the killings were genocide. The White
House traditionally makes a statement to mark Armenian Remembrance
Day on April 24.
Analysts say Turkey’s government hopes progress in reviving its
relations with Armenia could prompt the White House not to recognize
the killings as genocide and to block the Congressional resolution.
If the U.S. proceeds with the genocide resolution, "I cannot imagine
any Turkish government opening the Armenian border," said Ozgur
Unluhisarcikli, director of the Ankara office of the German Marshall
Fund of the United States, a think tank.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said on Turkish
television last week he would discuss Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian
"genocide" and relations between Russia and Georgia with the
U.S. president, among other issues.
One date under discussion for signing the deal with Armenia, diplomats
say, is April 16. But Mr. Unluhisarcikli said he believes Turkey and
Armenia won’t be ready to sign the deal before April 24, and Turkey
instead will "signal" its commitment to reopen the borders in the
hope that will be enough for Washington.