ARMENIAN JOURNALIST SAYS TURKEY-ARMENIA RAPPROCHEMENT POSTPONED
Today’s Zaman
April 21 2009
Turkey
Turkish and Armenian officials have been working hard to devise
a formula to solve the problems between their countries, but the
rapprochement has not only reached deadlock, it has been postponed,
one observer pointed out.
Boris Navasardyan, the Yerevan Press Club president, said one important
factor making a negative contribution to the process from the Armenian
side was them not taking decisive action.
"Armenia is traditionally an inert country. It never takes decisive
steps. That’s true for Turkey-Armenia relations," he said, adding
that the limited political resources of Armenia are not utilized well,
so experts who could contribute to the process are isolated.
"They are in a position to criticize but are never involved in the
process," he said yesterday at a roundtable meeting organized by
the Global Political Trends Center on "Turkey-Armenia Dialogue:
New Prospects."
Making things even more difficult could be the approaching municipal
elections on May 31 in Yerevan as one of the critics of the Armenian
government is running for a mayoral post.
"It’s a very important political event because Yerevan is half of
Armenia. Politics, economy and citizens’ activities all occur in
Yerevan. Because we have had problematic presidential elections,
the opposition claims that this is not an election for the mayor and
city council of Yerevan but a second round of presidential elections,"
Navasardyan said.
In mid-March, Levon Ter-Petrossian, the first president of Armenia,
was selected to head the ticket of the Armenian National Congress
(HAK) in the upcoming elections.
Yerevan has until now been governed by officials appointed by the
president of the republic. Under one of the amendments to Armenia’s
constitution enacted in November 2005, Yerevan mayors are chosen by
a municipal council elected by voters.
"After the [Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation] BSEC
meeting of foreign ministers in Yerevan, Armenian-Turkish relations
have been forgotten. Everyone is focused on elections in Yerevan. We
have to admit that the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement will be postponed
for some time," he said. "Now the Armenian government will wait and
focus on internal issues."
Even though Turkish and Armenian officials have been working hard to
devise a formula between their countries, they seem to have reached
a deadlock as Azerbaijan, an ethnic and strategic ally of Turkey,
has grown uneasy about the prospects of rapprochement between Ankara
and Yerevan, fearing it will lose key leverage in the Nagorno-Karabakh
dispute if Turkey opens its border and resumes diplomatic ties. Turkey
closed its border and severed diplomatic ties with Armenia in 1993
in protest over the Armenian occupation of a chunk of Azerbaijani
territory during a war over Nagorno-Karabakh.
When it comes to how the Nagorno-Karabakh issue affects Turkey-Armenia
relations, Navasardyan said both Armenia and Azerbaijan are insisting
on their full demands, and Turkey and Armenia are not showing any
willingness to compromise.