Sunday’s Zaman , Turkey
Oct 18 2009

Reducing historical baggage

DOGU ERGIL

Finally, the frozen history between Armenia and Turkey has begun to
thaw with the signing of the protocols in Zurich on Oct. 10, aiming at
initiating diplomatic relations and opening up borders. This was no
easy task. On one side is a nation whose collective identity is shaped
by mourning and grieving at a `Great Catastrophe’ that left them
bereft of a country, the present Turkish heartland, and a history that
both peoples shared until the first quarter of the 20th century. On
the other side there is a nation that views its past as a series of
betrayals and irredentist uprisings by peoples of the imperial state
such as the Armenians, who deserved the outcome of their `betrayal.’
Younger generations of both sides have learned from their elders that
their differences are irreconcilable and their interests are
diametrically opposed.

Fortunately, the international conjuncture that necessitated peace and
stability in the Caucasus and supported by major state actors such as
Russia and the US, not to mention the European Union, allowed for a
conducive atmosphere. However, the real factor is that through the
courage and consciousness of the presidents of both countries, they
are making history rather than being its prisoners.

Their courage is obvious as measured by the resistance and protests of
each nation’s nationalists and chauvinists, who look at the world from
the keyhole of their ideological prison. However, protestors on the
Armenian side are mainly from the diaspora. The Armenian diaspora is
the scion of those who were deported from Anatolia during World War I,
not from the east of the Ararat. So they are more radical and do not
experience the difficulties that their brethren live through in a
landlocked country.

Now the Armenian diaspora seems to have lost most of its leverage on
Armenia proper. It is no surprise that statements like cutting off
economic aid to Armenia from diaspora Armenians are being voiced in
some Western centers. Secondly now, the diaspora will have to talk
directly with Turkey to settle its scores, not through Armenia.

Is Turkish-Armenian rapprochement really the making of the Justice and
Development Party (AK Party) government? Not exactly; the Foreign
Ministry’s bureaucracy spent decades neutralizing the effects of the
global campaign of the Armenian diaspora against Turkey to get April
24 (1915) to be acknowledged as the day of genocide perpetrated by the
Turkish government of the time (the Ottomans). So far about 20
national parliaments have gone along. The biggest fight is taking
place on the floor of the US Congress. Turkish diplomats are sick and
tired of the tide every year. They wanted a solution, and they worked
toward that end. However, preparations had to be transformed into real
policies with determination and courage. The Justice and Development
Party (AK Party) government demonstrated that courage.

The initiation of diplomatic relations also heralds the end of an
unsuccessful policy isolating Armenia from the rest of the world and
making it hard to reach economic resources. It has proven to be a foul
initiative by looking at the reluctance of the Armenian military to
return Azerbaijani territory that it had occupied a decade and half
ago. It is obvious that Turkey would have more leverage on Armenia to
settle the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict that erupted two decades ago
over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian territory on
Azerbaijani soil.

No one should expect the return of Azerbaijani land occupied by
Armenian troops to solve the Karabakh issue. In fact, it will be more
pronounced when Azerbaijan directly faces the issue, but then the
issue concerns the residents of Karabakh and the Azerbaijanis, not
Turkey.

The choice of the site for the soccer game in Turkey following the
signing of the protocols is also interesting. Bursa was densely
populated by Armenians before World War I. It was also the seat of the
Armenian Patriarchy until Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror invited the
patriarch to the new imperial capital, Ä°stanbul. So Armenians came
back to their former homeland to start a walk in history with a people
they lived together with for 1,000 years.

If the majority of the Turks knew that their guests were the children
of the very same lands and people who lived next to their grandparents
or that their grandmother is one of the Armenian girls left behind by
desperate parents before their march into oblivion, a civic initiative
may start petitioning for the extension of citizenship to the heirs of
the deportees as a gesture of setting the historical score right.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Maybe one day.