TURKEY AND ARMENIA VOW TO HEAL PAST WOUNDS
By Hugh Pope
Today’s Zaman
Sept 2 2009
Turkey
It’s been a long time coming, but Turkey and Armenia’s vow on Aug. 31
to establish diplomatic relations, open their long-closed border and
begin to talk seriously about the past is excellent news.
As laid out in our April 14 report "Turkey and Armenia: Opening
Minds, Opening Borders," normalization between Turkey and Armenia will
benefit not just their bilateral relationship. If successful, it could
win back for Turkey and its Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
government much of their recently faded prestige as domestic reformers,
as regional peacemakers and as a country seriously intending to push
forward with its accession process to the European Union.
The brief joint announcement from Ankara, Yerevan and the Swiss
mediators in Bern said that two protocols had been initialed on
the establishment of diplomatic relations and the development of
bilateral relations. The two sides committed to seeing the protocols
through to parliamentary ratifications within six weeks — that is,
two days before an Oct. 14 World Cup qualifier match between Armenia
and Turkey due to be played in the western Turkish provincial city
of Bursa. Turkey hopes that Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan will
accept its invitation to attend, just as Turkish President Abdullah
Gul initiated the current process by attending the first round match
in Yerevan in September 2008.
Reasonable plan
Texts of the two protocols circulating in Turkey and Armenia set
out a fully rounded and reasonable plan. In a "Protocol on the
Establishment of Diplomatic Relations," the two sides promised to
establish diplomatic relations on the first day of the first month
after ratification, to exchange diplomatic missions, to reopen the
border within two months of ratification and to mutually recognize
the existing border. In a "Protocol on Development of Relations" —
to go into effect simultaneously with the diplomatic opening — the
two sides promised to promote cooperation in all areas from energy
infrastructure to tourism; to set up a mechanism of regular foreign
ministry consultations, including a main intergovernmental commission
and seven sub-commissions; to act jointly to preserve the cultural
heritage of both sides; and to establish consular cooperation. The
protocols are accompanied by a detailed timetable, in which all
steps and commissions would be fully implemented and in motion within
four months.
On the vexed question of how to describe the Ottoman-era massacres of
Armenians in World War I — widely known as the Armenian genocide, a
label rejected by Turkey — the "Protocol on Development of Relations"
agreed to "implement a dialogue on the historical dimension with the
aim to restore mutual confidence between the two nations, including an
impartial scientific examination of the historical records and archives
to define existing problems and formulate recommendations." The
timetable adds that this dialogue will be conducted under the aegis
of the main intergovernmental commission in a "sub-commission on the
historical dimension … in which Armenian, Turkish as well as Swiss
and other international experts shall take part."
In short, Turkey and Armenia have taken a brave and statesmanlike
step. Both will win if it succeeds. Armenia will overcome the sense
that it is surrounded and under siege, will open a new commercial
and psychological gateway westward to Europe, will be able to look
better after the interests of the many tens of thousands of Armenians
working in Turkey, will be able to market its electricity surplus and
have easier access to the many Armenian cultural and religious sites
in eastern Turkey. For Turkey, the gains are just as significant:
the ability to show European and Western partners that it is working
toward closure with Armenians on the contested matter of the World War
I massacres; to add a new plank in its efforts to bring stability,
prosperity and cooperation through relations with all three of its
Caucasus neighbors; and, finally, to achieve the satisfaction of full
and public Armenian recognition of its borders.
The Aug. 31 step towards normalization was originally expected
in April, but Turkey backed away from the deal. All that could
be announced on April 22 was a vague road map. This hesitation was
apparently due to pressure from Azerbaijan — a major supplier of cheap
gas to Turkey, and with which Turkey shares close linguistic ties —
and continued nationalist opposition to compromise with Armenia inside
the Turkish political system. This coincided with a period in Turkey in
which reforms towards EU accession had virtually halted; in which Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared disengaged with EU ambitions
and to be pursuing alternatives in Russia and the Middle East; and
in which Turkey appeared to be taking sides in Middle Eastern issues,
with notably harsh criticism of Israel. Turkey also appeared to side
fully with Azerbaijan against Armenia, and it remains unclear what will
happen to Erdogan’s May 14 promise to the Azerbaijani National Assembly
that there would be no opening of the Armenia-Turkey border until
there is an Armenian withdrawal from occupied Azerbaijani territory.
The news that normalization with Armenia is back on track, therefore,
is a signal that Turkey may be changing direction again. In the
past few months, Turkey and the AK Party leadership have also begun
to push hard for progress on two other difficult dossiers, coming
to terms with the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq and firmly
setting out a framework of reconciliation with its own substantial
Kurdish community. Progress towards Turkey-Armenia normalization has
also been helped by the unusual way that the US and Russia appear
to have been working separately toward a similar compromise outcome
and pushing more actively for progress toward a settlement of the
Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The fact that Turkey is now leaning back towards a reconciliation
with Armenia will do much to clear doubts about the country’s
posture and the priorities of Prime Minister Erdogan. It will also
do proper credit to the polls that showed 70 percent of the Turkish
population supported President Gul’s gesture of visiting Armenia for
last September’s first round soccer match, and the great strides
Turkey’s intellectual and political elites have taken in the past
decade to dismiss the old-fashioned narrative of nationalist denial
towards the catastrophic Armenian massacres of 1915. Normalization
with Armenia will also give real substance to new Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu’s stated goals of "zero problems" and "peace in the
neighborhood." However, while reconciliation with Armenia will rightly
attract great positive attention in Europe, the next test will not
be long in coming.
Turkey has to find a way to expedite a solution to the long-running
Cyprus problem in the next several months or see its EU accession
process effectively grind to a halt.
*Hugh Pope is the director of the Turkey/Cyprus Project at
International Crisis Group and the author of "Sons of the Conquerors:
the Rise of the Turkic World" (Overlook Duckworth, New York:
2005). This article was originally published on the International
Crisis Group Web site on Sept. 1.