ARMENIANS EYE MOVES WITH DEEP SKEPTICISM

Hurriyet
April 20 2009
Turkey

YEREVAN – High expectations in Yerevan of sealing the deal with Turkey
to establish diplomatic ties and reopen the border have yielded to
concerns that bilateral relations have been besieged once again by
the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.

The Armenian side no longer talks about the possibility of rapid
progress before April 24, the day that commemorates the mass-killing
of Armenians in 1915, but maintains cautious optimism about opening
the border within 2009. Meanwhile, the U.S. administration dispatched
Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza to the region.

Bryza arrives in Ankara today after a round of talks in Baku and
Yerevan in search of a breakthrough on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.

While Ankara now points to the meeting of Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev on May 6 as a new
critical juncture, it was learned that Bryza hoped for a breakthrough
on the Karabakh issue in June. Former Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian, who witnessed a failure of talks with then-Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul, argued that what was happening today was a repetition
of history. Speaking exclusively to Hurriyet Daily News & Economic
Review on Saturday, Oskanian recalled his own experience with the
Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government.

"I remember my first meeting with Gul. The AKP had just come to power
then and he told me they wanted to normalize relations and added that
Turkey did not benefit from linking the Turkey-Armenia problem to third
countries and Nagorno-Karabakh. And I told him that this was music
to my ears because we have been advocating for this for so long,"
he said. "But then they realized that the Azeri pressure cannot be
dismissed or ignored. Karabakh again became part of our discussions
and after a while it became clear that the Karabakh issue was the
main obstacle between the two countries."

Ankara`s efforts for an international push toward rapid progress
on Karabakh, meanwhile, have other implications for the U.S. in
terms of the power struggle in the Caucasus. Foreign Minister Ali
Babacan’s meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in
Yerevan last week, raised eyebrows in Washington, adding to the
existing discontent over Russian-Azerbaijani negotiations over
gas. Third-country diplomats, meanwhile, are worried that Armenia’s
cautious optimism might be lost, leading to a walk-out from the
negotiation table if Turkey squanders too much time with the Karabakh
problem. Assertive public statements similar to Erdogan`s on Karabakh
to please Azerbaijan need to be particularly avoided in these days,
according to diplomatic observers who follow the process closely.

"Nagorno-Karabakh may play some role over Turkish-Armenian
relations. But I think the problem is much deeper than this. Turkey
is not ready now," said Hovhannes Igityan, one of the leading names
of the National Armenia Party, led by the country’s first president,
Levon Ter-Petrossian. "When Turkey is ready to establish relations,
it would not wait for a declaration from Azerbaijan," he said.

Tevan Poghosyan, executive director of the International Center for
Human Development, joins veteran politician Igityan in disregarding
the Karabakh question as the threshold of a Turkish-Armenian
rapprochement. "I believe that Nagorno-Karabakh is just a fake,
artificial reason not to take a real step. Internal problems in
Turkey do not allow Turkey’s decision-makers to take the big step,"
he told to the Daily News.

While skepticism of Turkey’s sincerity still exists as an important
element of public opinion in Armenia, businessmen stand out among the
primary actors ready to reverse suspicion into interaction. Arsen
Ghazaryan, president of Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen of
Armenia (equivalent of TUSIAD) noted that because of the border
closure, the two nations that have lived together for 600 years are
losing the chance to culturally and economically reintegrate.