Turks and Armenians sign landmark agreement

The Irish Times
Mon, Oct 12, 2009

NICHOLAS BIRCH in Bursa, Turkey

DIVIDED BY a century of enmity, Armenia and Turkey took a significant step
towards normalising relations on Saturday, when the two countries¹ foreign
ministers signed two protocols foreseeing a start to full diplomatic
relations and the opening of a shared border closed since 1993.

But last-minute delays in the signing ceremony in Zurich and angry reactions
from domestic opponents, Azerbaijan and the five million-strong Armenian
diaspora suggest the road ahead will be far from easy.

Speaking to Turkey¹s state-run TRT television on Sunday, Turkish foreign
minister Ahmet Davutoglu put the three-hour delay down to disagreements over
the wording of statements after the signing ceremony.

After intensive lobbying from US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who was
in Zurich for the ceremony, he and his Armenian counterpart Edouard
Nalbantian agreed to make no statements at all.

Neither side has given details of the nature of the disagreement, but the
points of tensions between the two sides are well known.

Unlike most historians, Turkey continues to insist that the murder of up to
one million Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was the result of a civil war, not a
planned genocide. Many Armenians see the protocol¹s plans for a joint
commission to investigate the events of 1915 as capitulation. ³Do not sell
our dead to the Turks,² read banners waved by a nationalist crowd in Yerevan
on Saturday.

Turkey worries that opening Armenia¹s border will end any incentive Armenia
has to withdraw from parts of Azerbaijan that it occupied in the early 1990s
at the cost of some 30,000 lives.

Related by religion and language to Azerbaijan, Turkey closed its Armenian
border in protest at the occupation. Azeri opposition has already capsized
plans to sign the protocols once, this April. Yesterday, the Azeri foreign
ministry went on the offensive again, saying the deal was ³in direct
contradiction² to its national interests.

Turkish and Armenian parliaments now have to ratify the protocols. With
Turkish nationalists describing Saturday as ³a black day for Turkey², prime
minister Tayyip Erdogan reiterated calls yesterday for an acceleration of
Azeri-Armenian talks.

Most analysts say that future hitches in the ratification process are likely
to come from the Armenian side. In Turkey, the last five years have seen a
radical reworking of the country¹s traditionally cautious foreign policy.
Taking Ahmet Davutoglu¹s slogan of ³no problems on our borders² as its base,
the government has strengthened relations with Syria, Iran, Russia and
Iraq¹s Kurds, all former enemies.

It now also supports a solution on Cyprus, divided since Turkey invaded in
1974. The West strongly supports rapprochement, arguing that the growing
regional clout of EU candidate member Turkey would increase stability in the
volatile south Caucasus, an increasingly important westbound transit
corridor for oil and gas.

³The more we can pull the bowstring into Asia, the further we can shoot the
arrow into Europe,² Mr Davutoglu said yesterday.

³A Turkey which has no influence on its immediate neighbourhood cannot be a
respected candidate in Europe.²

© 2009 The Irish Times