The New York Times
April 24, 2009 Friday
Late Edition – Final
Skirting Thorniest Issues, Turkey and Armenia Move to Ease Tensions
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and SEBNEM ARSU
ISTANBUL
Turkey and Armenia have agreed to a framework for improving their
strained relations, the two countries said in a statement this week,
apparently in the first breakthrough in diplomacy in more than a
decade.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 to support its ally,
Azerbaijan, which was fighting Armenian-backed separatists in the
Nagorno-Karabakh region. But relations have long been tense: Turkey
does not recognize the mass killings of more than a million Ottoman
Armenians in 1915 as genocide, something Armenia has long campaigned
for.
The agreement, which was issued by Turkey’s Foreign Ministry in a
short statement late Wednesday, came on the eve of the Armenians’
annual commemoration of the genocide. It provided no details on how
the two countries would move forward, stating simply that they ”had
achieved tangible progress and mutual understanding” and that ”a
road map has been identified.”
Switzerland has been the mediator, the statement said. Tigran Balayan,
the spokesperson for Armenia’s Foreign Ministry, confirmed by
telephone from Yerevan, the country’s capital, that the statement had
been issued by Armenia, too.
Armenian authorities have said the negotiations have not yet taken on
the two thorniest issues in bilateral relations — Nagorno-Karabakh
and the genocide.
The statement’s timing seemed calculated to dampen enthusiasm in the
United States for passing a resolution in Congress to recognize the
Armenian killings as genocide. In a trip to Turkey this month,
President Obama praised the two countries’ efforts to overcome their
differences and refrained from using the word ”genocide” when
pressed to reiterate his position on the matter.
”I’m not interested in the U.S. tilting these negotiations one way or
another while they are having a useful discussion,” he said.
American presidential administrations typically oppose the passage of
such a resolution because it would anger Turkey.
The House of Representatives came close to voting on a genocide bill
in 2007, but Turkey, a NATO member and an ally in the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, vehemently protested, and the bill never reached the
floor. Niyazi Oktem, a law professor at Bilgi University in Istanbul,
said the statement appeared to be aimed at supporting Mr. Obama’s
position to give dialogue a chance.
”This statement gives the Obama administration a tool to show that
there are progressive steps made toward the resolution of the conflict
between Armenia and Turkey,” Mr. Oktem said.
It was also a trial balloon for the populations of both countries,
which are deeply committed to their own national narratives and may
oppose a reconciliation.
Allegiances in the region are complicated: The thaw between Armenia
and Turkey, however slight, has worried Azerbaijan, whose bitter feud
with Armenia has not abated. Among the measures widely reported to be
under consideration by Armenian and Turkish negotiators is opening the
border between the countries to allow trade, something Azerbaijan
would see as a betrayal.
On Thursday, Reuters quoted the Azeri Foreign Ministry spokesman,
Elkhan Polukhov, as saying that ”opening the border could lead to
tensions in the region and would be contradictory to the interests of
Azerbaijan.”