US HAILS TURKEY-ARMENIA DEAL
By Dan Dombey in Washington, Delphine Strauss in Ankara and Isabel Gorst in
Moscow

FT
April 23 2009 12:39

The US has hailed a deal between Turkey and Armenia that diplomats
hope will resolve one of the disputes left over from the collapse of
the Soviet Union – and greatly diminish the risk of a clash between
Washington and Ankara.

The agreement, announced on Wednesday night by the Armenian and Turkish
foreign ministries, sets out a road-map "for the normalisation of
their bilateral relations in a mutually satisfactory manner", the
statement said.

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in Turkey – Apr-08The two sides have been working for months to sketch
out a deal to restore diplomatic relations and open the shared border,
which Turkey closed in 1993 to support its ally Azerbaijan, in conflict
with Armenia over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The agreement has yet to receive final approval, but US officials
were quick to celebrate the outline deal, under which the border will
be opened and efforts to resolve the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh
will intensify.

"This is a big deal, although it’s still fragile and the governments
have to carry it out," said a senior US official. "There is strong
opposition in both Tur key and Armenia and yet both governments have
held firm and both deserve credit."

"This is one nasty dispute that seems to be on its way to happy
resolution and it may pave the way for the resolution of another
dispute," said the US official, highlighting a parallel with another
recent event in the Caucasus. "It’s a hell of a lot better than
dealing with a war in Georgia."

The breakthrough also appears to eliminate the prospect of president
Barack Obama denouncing Ottoman-era massacres of up to 1.5m Armenians
as "genocide", a step that Turkey warns would damage both talks with
Armenia and relations with Washington.

The deal was announced just ahead of Friday’s commemoration of
the Armenian dead, on which the US president customarily issues
a statement.

Mr Obama promised during his campaign for the presidency to recognise
the killings as genocide. But while visiting Turkey this month,
he said that he wanted to focus not on his own views but on the
normalisation of Turkish-Armenian ties.

But Wednesday’s statement gives few clues as to how Armenia and Turkey
will address the issue of the 1915 massacres. Turkey has long proposed
a committee of historians, but the details of how such a committee
would work are still to be decided.

Nor is it clear how closely further progress will be linked to
resolution of the conflict over Nagorno Karabagh=2 0- legally part
of Azerbaijan, but under Armenian control since a violent civil war
erupted in the late 1980s.

Elkhan Polukhov, a spokesman for the Azerbaijani foreign ministry,
said on Thursday: "Azerbaijan believes that the restoration of
Turkish/Armenian relations must take place within the context of the
regulation of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict."

The Azeri government has put pressure on Turkey over the past days
of negotiations, making a trip to Moscow and suggesting that any
perceived betrayal by its ally could affect future sales of Azeri gas.

Turkish ministers responded by reiterating that they would normalise
ties with Armenia only in parallel with a process to resolve the
Nagorno-Karabagh stalemate. But Wednesday’s agreement is more likely
to contain an "expression of goodwill" by Armenia on the issue than a
concrete gesture, according to a source close to the Turkish foreign
ministry.