IS THE ARMENIAN-TURKISH RAPPROCHEMENT IN JEOPARDY?
by Liz Fuller

Radio Free Europe
August 3, 2009

Over the past month, Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has expressed
frustration on three separate occasions that the Turkish government
is apparently backpedaling with regard to its April commitment to
seek ways to

"normalize" bilateral relations without preconditions. Turkey’s
response to those statements has been cautiously muted.

Sarkisian first publicly called for unconditional rapprochement between
Turkey and Armenia over a year before his election as president in
February 2008. In September 2008, Turkish President Abdullah Gul
visited Yerevan at Sarkisian’s invitation to watch a soccer match
between the two countries’ national teams.

Then in April, following months of Swiss-mediated talks, it was
announced that the two sides had agreed on a "road map" intended to
lead to the establishment of formal bilateral relations and to the
opening of their common border.

The first unconfirmed reports of that impending announcement surfaced
in late March and triggered outrage in Azerbaijan, whose leadership
had for years argued that any formal agreement by Turkey on closer
relations with Armenia should be contingent on key concessions by the
latter on the terms for a solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

On June 16, Turkey’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan Hulusi Kilic told
Azerbaijan’s APA news agency that no steps had been taken to implement
measures outlined in the road map. "Nothing is being done. Nothing
has changed," he was quoted as saying. Commenting on July 21 on
the apparent stalemate, Richard Giragosian, who heads the Armenian
Center for National and International Studies, made the point that
"Turkey is surprised: it underestimated the reaction of Azerbaijan
and overestimated its own leverage."

The lack of progress in implementing the road map, in conjunction
with increasing opposition criticism of the most recent draft of
the so-called Madrid Principles for resolving the Karabakh conflict,
clearly irks Sarkisian. Speaking in Yerevan on July 6 following talks
with visiting Cypriot President Demetris Christofias, Sarkisian said,
"we want to eliminate closed borders remaining in Europe and to build
normal relationships without preconditions. But in that endeavor,
we do not intend to allow [anyone] to use the negotiating process
for misleading the international community."

Three weeks later, on July 28, Sarkisian implied that he might refrain
from traveling to Turkey in October as planned to watch the return
soccer match unless Ankara takes "constructive steps" to "create a
proper environment" for that visit. "I will leave for Turkey if we
have an open border [by then] or stand on the brink of the lifting
of the blockade of Armenia," Sarkisian said.

Then on July 30, at a meeting with young diaspora Armenians, Sarkisian
explicitly rejected attempts to link the desired normalization of
Armenian-Turkish relations to progress in resolving the Karabakh
conflict. Sarkisian recalled that Armenia had "found the strength"
to extend a hand in friendship to Turkey despite the legacy of
the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. He said that
"Armenia and Turkey have been conducting negotiations for a whole
year, we have reached agreement on two documents, but now certain
Turkish political forces are trying to put forward preconditions and
link the establishment of diplomatic relations with Armenia to the
Karabakh conflict and to Armenian-Azerbaijani relations."

Sarkisian acknowledged that Turkey is a large and influential
country. But he warned at the same time that "we Armenians are
an independent nation, and it is inadmissible to talk to us in
the language of preconditions. Any tough step brings about a
counterreaction." He did not elaborate.

Some Turkish commentators have suggested that such statements by
Sarkisian could jeopardize the rapprochement process. But Turkish
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu took a softer position, saying
that the "cold war" in bilateral relations is over and that the two
countries no longer regard each other as enemies. Davutoglu said he
considers it unlikely that Sarkisian will cancel his plans to visit
Turkey in October.