Armenians divided on Turkey accords
By Tanya Goudsouzian
Source: Al Jazeera
10 Oct 09
Diaspora Armenians have held annual commemorations of what they claim
is a genocide perpetrated by Turkey in 1915 and say the draft protocols
could whitewash Ankara’s role [AFP]
When the Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers meet in Switzerland on
October 10 to sign an agreement to normalise relations, they will put a
century of conflict and controversy behind them.
The draft protocols of agreement, first made public on August 31, seek
to establish diplomatic relations and the possible reopening of the
long-closed Turkish-Armenian border.
However, the draft protocols have sparked heated debate among
nationalists on both sides and provoked outraged condemnation from many
diaspora Armenians.
There have been protests in the Armenian capital Yerevan and
demonstrations across Argentina, Canada, France, Lebanon, Russia and
the US.
‘Determine the truth’
In 2008, Abdullah Gul, left, met with Sarkisian in Yerevan to launch
the draft protocols [EPA]
The move to sign the protocols comes one year after an historic visit
to Armenia by Abdullah Gul, the Turkish president and follow,
reportedly, months of secret talks brokered by Swiss mediators.
Earlier this month, Serzh Sarkisian, the Armenian president, began a
world tour of diaspora Armenian communities in an effort to alleviate
their concerns and explain his government’s20position.
However, it is doubtful he will succeed as many Armenians believe the
protocols relinquish too many of their rights for far too little in
return.
Pitched as a means to boost landlocked Armenia’s stagnant economy, the
protocols are being rushed through the legislature in the capital
Yerevan.
Critics believe the protocols have been hastily drawn up and largely
favour Turkey.
If the protocols are ratified, they say, Armenia would essentially
forfeit its right to demand that Turkey recognise, and be held
accountable for, what they describe as the genocide in which more than
1.5 million Armenians perished.
Ankara has always rejected such charges and says many died on both
sides during the First World War. Many Turks were also killed in what
Turkey calls a civil war caused by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
The number of Turks who died cannot be verified but both Turkey and
Armenia agree not as many Turks as Armenians died.
The protocols call for the establishment of an independent fact-finding
commission to "determine the truth".
"These protocols, by establishing a historical commission, fuel
Turkey’s denial of the Armenian genocide, a policy that represents a
grave offence to the Armenian nation and a direct security threat to
the Republic of Armenia," says Aram Hamparian, executive director of
the Armenian National Committee of America.
"In requiring that the borders be recognised fi
rst, as a precondition
for even the establishment of relations, the Turkish side clearly seeks
to pressure the Armenian government into forfeiting the rights of all
Armenians to a just resolution of this crime."
Nagorno-Karabakh
In 1988, Armenia and Azerbaijan clashed over the disputed enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh after ethnic Armenians declared their independence
from Azerbaijani rule.
Armenian forces seized control of the disputed territory and seven
surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s and declared an
independent state – the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
Turkey sided with Azerbaijan, a country it feels is a traditional and
ethnic ally, imposed an embargo on Yerevan, and closed the border
thereby preventing land-locked Armenia from easy access to European
trade.
Despite repeated diplomatic efforts since a tenuous ceasefire took hold
in 1993, Armenia and Azerbaijan have failed to negotiate a settlement
on the region’s status.
However, since the protocol agreements were first drafted, Turkey has
promised that it will re-open borders with Armenia, leaving Azerbaijan
fearful of losing any leverage it may have had in final settlement
talks.
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, meanwhile, fears losing its only real
support for independence in Yerevan in favour of the protocols with
Turkey.
US influence
Armenia was the only country to recognise the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
Joseph Kechichian, editor of the Journal of the Society for Armenian
Studies, told Al Jazeera: "The Turks are in a bind vis-a-vis Azerbaijan
because if, and when, they open the border, Azerbaijan will fall back
into even more irrelevance."
"Watch for added Azeri pressure on Turkey in the weeks and months to
come. What kind of economic sweeteners will be dangled by Moscow and
Ankara in front of Yerevan and Baku will probably determine whether
contemplated accords will work," he said.
Kechichian also believes that ratification of the protocols will
strengthen US influence in the region, if indirectly, through its
traditional ally and fellow Nato member Turkey.
Some experts believe that since the visit of Barack Obama, the US
president, to Turkey in April, there has been growing momentum in the
Middle East and South Caucasus to position Ankara as a counterweight to
Iranian and Russian influence in the region.
"Sadly, it would seem that the US, in pressuring Armenia to accept the
one-sided terms of these protocols, is effectively acting as Turkey’s
surrogate in the region," says Hamparian.
Armenian interests sidelined?
Vartan Oskanian, a former Armenian foreign minister, has also voiced
reservations. While supporting the establishment of normal relations
with Turkey, he maintains he "would have never signed this document".
Acco
rding to Oskanian, the protocols – prepared with the participation
of the US and other influential countries – do not serve Armenian
interests.
He has urged people to hold mass rallies "so that the authorities can
understand that 70 per cent of the people [are] against it".
But many Armenians inside the country believe that "bread-and-butter"
realities must precede any lofty historical principles.
Relations with Turkey, they argue, are essential to improving Armenia’s
crippled economy. They dismiss as irrelevant the protests and
condemnations by diaspora Armenians, many of whom are descendants of
survivors who fled Turkey in 1915.
They insist that the policies and economic vicissitudes of the Armenian
republic have no direct, or even indirect, impact on their lives, and
as such, those outside the country do not have the right to interfere.
Stabilising the region
Some Armenians fear that their claims of genocide may be ignored
[GETTY]
Richard Giragosian, the director of the Armenian Centre for National
and International Studies in Yerevan, contends that "open borders and
normal relations are essential and stand as prerequisites to
development and stability".
"An agreement with Turkey would offer Armenia an immediate end to the
country’s dependence on Georgia, and would do much to lessen
over-dependence on Russia by bringing Armenia closer to the West, while
also bringing Europe closer to Armenia," he says.0D
"And in a strategic sense, the normalisation with Turkey is an
imperative for overcoming the two strategic threats now facing Armenia
– isolation and insignificance."
Russia and Iran
But if the US is attempting to wean Armenia from its traditional
allies, notably Russia and Iran, and to alter the dynamics in the
Caucasus, there may be challenges.
"Armenian-Russian and Armenian-Iranian ties are immensely important to
Yerevan. They may be impossible to break given Armenia’s survival
instincts. Nothing will jeopardise that," says Kechichian.
"Lest we forget, both Russia and Iran provided vital assistance to
Armenia during some of its darkest hours after independence in 1991,
when the country confronted a systematic embargo that was akin to
strangulation.
"Moscow and Tehran may well have acted for their own strategic reasons
to aid Yerevan, but the critical support was a life-saver nevertheless."
Energy rush
According to Harry Hagopian, a London-based international lawyer and EU
political consultant with the Paris-based Christians in Political
Action group, the geopolitical situation in the Caucasus has changed
drastically since the Georgia-Russia war.
He believes that it is not simply altering the political balance in the
region or possible membership of the European Union that is at stake.
The key issue, he says, is oil.
"Signing the protocol on the historic lands would allow Turkey to use
them for its energy and transport routes – including the Nabucco
pipeline project – without any possible legal prejudice.
"I do not claim that those lands could return to Armenia, but a
customary line has been gratuitously crossed in those protocols between
territorial integrity on the one hand and the recognition of current
borders on the other – a distinction which is applied by many countries
both in the Caucasus and elsewhere worldwide, so why not in this
instance too?" he points out.
Armenia’s needs notwithstanding, the speed with which the protocols
were presented and are being imposed on the diaspora indicate that
powerful outside forces are at play.
For Yerevan, however, these must be secondary concerns given the
historical burden that the Armenia assumes on behalf of the Armenian
nation.
It remains to be seen whether decisions made by politicians will bridge
the growing gulf that has emerged between the two to three million
citizens of the Republic of Armenia and the estimated seven to eight
million Armenians living in the diaspora.
"The Armenian government erred when it did not consult more
transparently with the diaspora and [instead] sprang the agreement on
them in the way it did last August," says Hagopian.
"After all, just as Israel listens to its Jewish lobbies worldwide and
even uses them to pursue its national interests, Armenia should have
done the same with its own diaspora."
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