Cyprus Mail
April 28, 2009 Tuesday

Opening minds, opening borders

by Hugh Pope

PRESIDENT Barack Obama trod a fine moral line this month between his
past campaign promises to use the word genocide to describe the World
War I massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and his present
opportunity to nurture normalization between Armenia and Turkey.

But his compromise was no capitulation to the realpolitik of
US-Turkish strategic interests, as some Armenians may suspect and some
Turks may hope. It is actually a challenge to both parties to move
beyond the stalemates of history.

The opportunity could hardly be better. After a decade of civil
society outreach and growing official engagement, Armenia and Turkey
jointly announced on Wednesday a Swiss-mediated deal to establish
diplomatic relations and open borders. The two sides will also set up
a bilateral commission to study what Armenians commemorate each April
24 as the beginning of a genocide against their people by the Ottoman
Turks in 1915, and what Turkey says were forced relocations, uprisings
and massacres during the chaos of World War I.

Before implementing the deal, however, Turkey is now seeking an
Armenian commitment to withdraw from territory in Azerbaijan that
ethnic Armenian forces occupied in the 1992-94 Nagorno-Karabakh war.

But Ankara would be ill-advised to hold up rapprochement with Yerevan
because of protests from its ally, Azerbaijan. In fact, normalizing
relations with Armenia is the best way for Turkey to help its ethnic
and linguistic Azerbaijani cousins. It would make Armenia feel more
secure, making it perhaps also more open to a compromise over
Nagorno-Karabakh.

The border closure these past 16 years has done nothing to force a
settlement over the contested region. The fragility of the 1994
cease-fire truce makes a new way forward is imperative. Armenian
normalisation with Turkey will not be sustainable in the long run,
though, unless Yerevan and Baku agree to the ongoing international
Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, leading to Armenian troop withdrawals.

It is this complex situation that explains Mr. Obama’s diplomatic
language. In this year’s April 24 memorial statement, the US president
chose not to use the word "genocide" to describe the events of 1915,
preferring the Armenian term "Mets Yeghern," meaning "Great Man-Made
Catastrophe."

The Turks resent the term genocide partly because they want their view
of the events to be taken into account and partly because the term
genocide has potential legal implications involving possible demands
for reparations and compensation. The Swiss-brokered deal will include
an Armenian recognition of Turkey’s borders, banishing the shadow of
long-lingering territorial claims.

Armenians argue that the past decade of international resolutions and
statements recognising the Armenian genocide have forced Turkey to end
its blanket denial of Ottoman wrongdoing. But such outside pressures
have got no closer to making Turkey accept the term genocide itself
especially when the bills before Congress and other parliaments are
clearly the result of domestic political calculations rather than
high-minded deliberation.

On the Armenian question, many Turks, including government officials
now publicly express regret over the loss of Armenian life.

A 2005 conference on the Armenian issue the Turkish intelligentsia
demonstrated that the country’s academic and cultural elite wants to
do away with the old nationalist defensiveness.

And, far from worsening Turkish-Armenian relations, the murder of
Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in 2007 by a shadowy
nationalist gang triggered a march of 100,000 people in Istanbul
carrying signs saying "We Are All Armenians."

Opinion polls show two-thirds of Turks supported President Abdullah
Gül’s decision in September to accept his Armenian counterpart Serzh
Sarkisian’s invitation for a World Cup qualifier soccer match and to
become the first Turkish head of state to visit Armenia. Then in
December, 200 leading Turkish intellectuals began a signature campaign
to apologise for what they called the "Great Catastrophe" of the
Armenians. Nearly 30,000 people have signed it so far.

Turkey’s efforts with Armenia fit into decade-long efforts to improve
ties with other neighboring countries. Ankara has successfully
normalised its once tense relations with Syria, Greece and Iraqi
Kurdistan.

New trends are visible in Armenia too. As pride and security in the
new Armenian statehood grows, genocide recognition no longer overrides
all other national interests. Issues such as the need for more
economic opportunities, a broader-based regional strategy and an open
Turkish border that can be a gateway to the West are taking centre
stage. Armenians increasingly spend their vacation in Turkish resorts.

Change is also evident in the diaspora, which has a strong influence
on Yerevan. The Armenian community in France led an international
campaign, joined by Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan and more than 100
public intellectuals, to say "Thank You" for the Turkish apology
efforts. As President Obama has recognised, it is this trend of
convergence that offers the best chance in decades to open the borders
between these two states, moving beyond nearly a century in which
Turks and Armenians have been held hostage to frozen conflicts,
nationalist confrontation and the ghosts of the past.

. Hugh Pope is author of "Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey"
and is the Istanbul representative of International Crisis Group,
which published a new report on Turkey and Armenia on April 14
available on

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress