Haykakan Zhamanak, Armenia
May 11 2009

Will the border open, or will the trap close?

The issue of normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations is in fact
connected not only with the regional and geopolitical life, but also
with the political life and the situation in Armenia. At present it is
vital for the power of [Armenian President] Serzh Sargsyan. No matter
how hard representatives of the current authorities try, they simply
cannot report any concrete result of Sargsyan’s one year of term in
office. Armenia has faced only regression, decline and depression in
the past year in all spheres of the public life without exclusion. If
anyone sees progress in any sphere, it is his own problem. However,
the reality is dull.

[Passage omitted: Pashinyan writes that no grounds for positive change
have been created in the past year in Armenia.]

At present, under these conditions, the opening of Armenian-Turkish
border would be the only concrete event which will allow Sargsyan’s
government to fill in the empty list of positive actions. This is the
reason why Sargsyan’s administration has held its breath and waits
whether the opening of the border will finally occur. Incidentally,
the word "to wait" describes the whole essence of the situation of the
Armenian authorities, because Sargsyan’s administration has been
de-facto deprived of an opportunity to influence the process of
opening Armenian-Turkish border after the well-known invitation to
[Turkish President Abdullah] Gul, and at present has the status of an
observer. To put it more correctly – in the status of someone who is
entrapped. Sargsyan has already entered the process of normalization
of Armenian-Turkish relations and did this self-forgetfully, without
taking niceties into account, in order to run away from domestic
political problems.

[Passage omitted: Pashinyan says that Sargsyan now cannot reverse the
process and Turkey understands this and may delay the process, getting
benefits and creating a hard situation for Armenia.]

US President Barack Obama’s phone call (during his visit to Turkey) to
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev witnessed about this. It seemed
that before making this call, the US president did not connect the
normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations with Armenian-Azerbaijani
relations. However, we learnt from official reports that the US
president "stated" that the long-lasting discord between Azerbaijan,
Armenia and Turkey would be solved quickly and peacefully.

The first question to ask is the following: why the US president
discusses the issue of Armenian-Turkish relations with the leader of a
third country and, how is Azerbaijan linked to the discord between
Armenia and Turkey. The link, is of course, clear, however the sense
of the current stage of Armenian-Turkish relations was that these
relations will be settled without conditions and preconditions being
linked to Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. This issue is already being
bypassed by the US president as well, and now Armenia turns out to be
in a double diplomatic trap. Not only that Turkey meddled in the
Karabakh negotiation process, now Azerbaijan is dealing with the
redetermining Armenian-Turkish relations. The impression is that
during this whole period Turkey and Azerbaijan have been passing the
ball to each other, showing some contradictions and discords; discords
which may not exist in fact, or are a show only. It is possible that
there is only a preliminary developed scenario. The lack of such a
scenario might be proved only by opening of Armenian-Turkish
border. One cannot totally exclude the probability of this, however it
is hard to believe that such a thing will take place in the near
future. However the tragedy is that if the border does not open it
will be almost impossible to force Turkey out of the cause of the
Karabakh settlement – and to deprive Azerbaijan of levers to influence
Armenian-Turkish relations. Thus, Armenia will find itself in a
laughable and helpless condition yet another time. This prospect is
simply up in the air, and one only has to hope that the
Armenian-Turkish border will open – independently from the
negotiations on Karabakh settlement. Otherwise, Armenia will become a
subject of diplomats’ laugh. On the other hand, a sober political
analysis shows that the probability of opening the border is
decreasing with time, and one can pin hopes on fortune only. If Turkey
uses the closure of the border for intervening in the Karabakh
settlement and as a new support in its relations with the USA, why it
should open the border?