Sunday’s Zaman, Turkey
Oct 18 2009

Turkish, Armenian businessmen play key role in diplomacy

Relations between Turkey and some of its more problematic neighbors
have been pushed along at least in part with the help of the European
Union, through its mix of conditions and incentives.

The fact that Greece was a member of the EU and that the prospect of
accession to the union became all the more likely throughout the
decade has also served to boost the incentive of increasing bilateral
relations between the countries.
No such stick-and-carrot approach exists with Armenia. And the gnawing
claims, demands and accusations that Armenians both within Armenia
proper as well as in the diaspora have been making of Turkey have
served many purposes, not least of which has been to agitate parties
capable of making agreements. Given these facts and the minuscule
population of the country — 1.5 million mostly poor inhabitants who
make for a poor market for Turkish business — the incentives for
improving business ties with the country have been anything but
urgent.

But much like Turkish-Greek rapprochement, in which businessmen on
both sides of the border emerged as some of the driving forces of
warming relations, the improving ties with Armenia have come about, at
least in part, because of backchannel negotiations amongst business
leaders in the two countries.

Kaan Soyak, co-chairman and co-founder of the Turkish-Armenian
Business Development Council (TABDC), who has been actively working on
promoting Turkish and Armenian business relations for the past 12
years, is one such example. `We used business diplomacy to increase
other kinds of diplomacy,’ Soyak told Sunday’s Zaman, noting that when
the organization was founded they could not run with a `friendship
association’ heading or a `cultural exchange’ banner and had to
operate under the guise of a `business organization.’

Soyak proudly states that everything that was done between the
countries, either directly or indirectly, was at least in part
facilitated by the TABDC. `We were always in the middle,’ he noted.

To his credit, the TABDC was influential in arranging closer meetings
between the two sides in 1997-1998. `But whenever we came closer
together, the genocide resolutions came up, and the process was
suspended,’ he said. `It was like a game or a dance: two steps
forward, one step back.’

But, despite the philanthropic endeavors, the organization is
principally a business organization. `We are all businessmen. We all
have business backgrounds. But more than business, we thought we could
encourage other tracks to use us to build confidence,’ Soyak said.
Describing how they tried to spur relations between the two sides, he
said, `We tried to highlight the process of business relations between
the two sides in the fields of textiles, railroads and tourism.’

`We did our best [to work] with the [Armenian] diaspora,’ he said. `It
was a lot of work.’ To his satisfaction, he said increasing numbers in
the Armenian diaspora were coming to the consensus that improving
relations between Turkey and Armenia should be decoupled from larger,
thornier problems that have hobbled negotiations for decades. A
détente, so to speak.

To this end, he hoped to revive the Turkish-American Business Council
(TAÄ°K), which has been `sleeping’ for years in New York. The time is
coming to revive it with the help of the `silent’ Armenian diaspora —
those who want to further the protocols — he said, referring to last
week’s agreement between the two sides, which is the culmination of
increasingly warming relations and could lead to the opening of the
Turkish-Armenian border, closed by Turkey as a sign of fraternity with
its ethnic ally and close diplomatic partner Azerbaijan when Armenia
annexed the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

He cautioned, however, that if the agreement was not cemented quickly,
the political cleavages had the potential to harden. To help the
Turkish public digest the conciliatory steps and ease the nationalist
political discourse that has the potential to hinder politicians,
Soyak hoped that Armenia and Azerbaijan would take some small steps
forward. Indeed, the organization’s endeavors to create a free trade
zone for the textile sector received a boost of support earlier in the
year when the US House of Representatives caucuses for Armenia and
Turkey agreed to work together in order to create qualified industrial
zones that could export jointly produced products free of tax and
duties to the US.

Historical precedents do exist. The US helped create such zones
between Jordan and Israel as a means not only to promote development
in the two countries but also to facilitate exchanges and relations
between them.

Other foreign organizations have also taken an active role in the
improving relations between the two sides. One such organization is
the American Business Forum in Turkey (ABFT), a member of the US
Chamber of Commerce.

`About three years ago, an Armenian resolution surfaced in the US
Congress,’ explained Galip Sukaya, former chairman of the ABFT, who
said that at the time, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an had
called on businesses to take action. `I wrote a personal letter to
each and every member of the US House of Representatives,’ Sukaya
said, adding that the resistance of the diaspora was so great that a
number of ABFT members were pressured by their headquarters to resign.

`This was a difficult position to be in for the ABFT,’ said Sukaya. `I
thought it would be better to be proactive than reactive.’ He added
that he felt a good strategy would be to work toward promoting better
relations between the two countries.

The first opportunity was created when the Armenian American Chamber
of Commerce was accepted as a member of the European Council of
American Chambers of Commerce (ECACC) last year. Seizing the
opportunity, Sukaya used the occasion to not only congratulate his
Armenian counterpart, David Atanessian, on his chamber’s acceptance as
a member but also suggested that the two organizations cooperate on
improving relations between the two countries. `He agreed, and we
signed a joint declaration when President Gül visited Yerevan for the
World Cup qualifier soccer match between the national teams of Turkey
and Armenia,’ he said.

`As NGOs, we are in a unique position,’ Sukaya said. `We are not in
government. We are representing American business. Maybe we can start
getting closer together and work toward creating projects that would
be good for both of us.’

18 October 2009, Sunday
DAVID NEYLAN Ä°STANBUL