Hurdles to Turkey-Armenia Pact
The Wall Street Journal
OCTOBER 12, 2009
Territorial Dispute Is One Problem on Path to Ratification by Both
Parliaments
By SAMANTHA SHIELDS in Yerevan, Armenia, NICHOLAS BIRCH in Bursa, Turkey,
and MARC CHAMPION in Brussels
Just a day after Turkey and Armenia signed a historic accord aimed at
opening their borders and normalizing relations soured for generations by a
dispute over genocide, Turkey made clear that significant hurdles remain to
getting the deal implemented.
Saturday’s long-awaited signing in Switzerland almost didn’t happen due to
disagreements over what each side would say at the ceremony. U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton and Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
intervened with dramatic last-minute mediation. The signing in Zurich went
ahead three hours late. Diplomats said the compromise to get the accord
approved was that neither side made any statement.
But suspicions in Armenia were strong Sunday that Turkey had wanted to make
clear a linkage between implementing the accord and movement from Armenia to
resolve a territorial conflict with its neighbor, Turkic-speaking
Azerbaijan.
On Sunday, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, confirmed the
linkage, though he remained vague on what Armenia would have to do. "We want
all the borders to be opened … but as long as Armenia has not withdrawn
from Azerbaijani territory that it is occupying, Turkey cannot have a
positive attitude on this subject," Mr. Erdogan told members of his ruling
Justice and Development party, according to news-agency reports.
Mr. Erdogan underlined that the agreement still needs to be ratified by the
parliaments of Armenia and Turkey to take effect. He said Turkish
ratification is more likely if it becomes clear that Armenia and Azerbaijan
have begun "to look for a resolution to their problems."
Armenia has controlled Azeri territory in and around Azerbaijan’s mainly
ethnic-Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh since a war in the early 1990s.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993, in protest at what it viewed
as an Armenian occupation of Azeri territory.
Mr. Erdogan faces significant pressure from Azerbaijan and at home over the
deal. "This issue is very sensitive for Armenian society, but on the Turkish
side you have opposition not just in society but inside the state
apparatus," said Alexander Iskandaryan, a Yerevan-based political analyst.
"Surrender to the Armenians," read the headline in Turkey’s nationalist Yeni
Cag newspaper, though pro-government dailies were more supportive. The
foreign ministry of Azerbaijan said in a statement that the deal "casts a
shadow over the spirit of brotherly relations between Azerbaijan and
Turkey."
David Babayan, adviser to Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto president, said people
in the enclave worry Turkey will link the accord to a deal on Karabakh that
could weaken the position of Armenians there. "Officially there is no
mention of Karabakh in the protocols, but some people think a covert deal
has been done," he said by phone from Stepanakert, the Nagorno-Karabakh
capital.
Armenian President Serge Sarkisian reiterated in a televised address to the
nation before the protocols were signed Saturday his position that the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is unrelated to the Turkey accord.
Both sides stand to gain if the border opens. For Armenia, it could reduce
the landlocked nation’s economic isolation, and bring new trade and trade
routes. For Turkey, it could remove an irritant in relations with the U.S.
and in its accession talks with the European Union.
But Saturday’s accord is highly sensitive in Armenia and among the large
Armenian diaspora because it would establish a joint history commission to
look into the issue of up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians massacred around
1915 in what was then the Ottoman Empire. Most Western historians agree with
Armenia that the killings amounted to genocide. But Turkey strongly refutes
the label, and some Armenians worry Turkey will use the history commission
to push its case that both sides committed atrocities in what amounted to
civil war.
The accord also would affirm the current border Turkey-Armenia border, set
in a 1921 treaty between Turkey and Russia.
Write to Marc Champion at [email protected]
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A6