Eurasia Daily Monitor

Wednesday, December 9, 2009-Volume 6, Issue 226

TURKEY-ARMENIA NORMALIZATION LINKED TO ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN CONFLICT
RESOLUTION

by Vladimir Socor

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has clearly reaffirmed
the linkage between normalization of Turkey-Armenia relations and early
substantial progress toward resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan
conflict. Ankara defines such progress as an agreement on withdrawal of
Armenian troops from occupied districts of Azerbaijan beyond Upper
Karabakh, pending a determination of the latter’s future status.

Erdogan reinforced this linkage during his December 7-8 visit to
Washington, despite U.S. and E.U. attempts in recent months to break
that linkage and to convince Ankara also to break it. That course of
action ignored and alienated Azerbaijan, playing into Russia’s
hands and jeopardizing Western strategic interests in the South
Caucasus. Washington and Brussels seemed to be guided primarily by
internal political considerations in adopting that policy. They will now
have to reconsider it, in the wake of Erdogan’s and Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s latest clarifying statements.

The U.S. agenda for Erdogan’s visit, as publicized ahead
of the event (White House website, December 4) included neither the
Karabakh conflict nor energy projects such as Nabucco among the issues
to be discussed by President Barack Obama with Erdogan.

The first omission reflected Washington’s attempts to
de-link the Karabakh conflict-resolution negotiations from
Turkey-Armenia normalization. U.S. policy (seconded by that of the E.U.
and Russia) pressed for Turkish parliamentary ratification of the
October 10 Turkey-Armenia protocols on establishing full diplomatic
relations and opening the land border between them, without conditioning
this on Armenian troop withdrawal from certain Azerbaijani districts.

The omission of energy transit issues from the U.S.-prepared
agenda remained without official explanation, but could be seen as
relegating Caspian and European energy security to a secondary level on
the White House’s list of priorities. This perception would ipso
facto reduce Azerbaijan’s importance to U.S. policy in this
administration, compared with preceding U.S. administrations of both
parties. Obama solicited Turkish support on Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq
as top U.S. priorities, while also urging Turkish ratification of the
protocols with Armenia.

Obama did not mention the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict or a
Karabakh resolution process at the concluding news conference. It was
Erdogan who reintroduced this issue into the equation: `We have
also discussed [issues] between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are of
great importance in the context of Turkey-Armenia
relations=80¦because the normalization process between Turkey and
Armenia is very much related to those issues,’ Erdogan stated at
the joint news conference (White House press release, December 7; APA,
PBS, December 8).

In follow-up statements in Washington, Erdogan recounted that he
had `explained to him [Obama]’ that Turkey-Armenia
normalization is difficult without resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan
conflict. The Turkish parliament is `conditioning’ the
protocols’ ratification on conflict-resolution, it
`feels strongly about this,’ and it `cannot be
dictated to,’ he declared. He called for Armenian troop
withdrawal from seven Azerbaijani districts and urged the "Minsk
Group’s" co-chairs (U.S., Russia, France) to promote that goal (APA,
December 8).

U.S. policy makers were still pressing as recently as last month
for de-synchronizing the two processes. On the eve of Erdogan’s
visit, however, the Turkish position had become clear. During the
OSCE’s year-end conference in Athens, Davutoglu stated that the
Turkish parliament can only ratify the Turkey-Armenia protocols after
the Karabakh issue is resolved (Trend, December 2).

Erdogan clarified–in an interview televised in
Azerbaijan–that `resolution’ means, in this
context, `reaching an agreement [between Azerbaijan and Armenia]
regarding the seven districts=80¦.We have told U.S. officials all
along: If you want to resolve the Turkey-Armenia issue, you should also
resolve the Karabakh conflict. Otherwise any resolution would be
impossible=80¦The Turkish-Armenian issue and the Karabakh problems
are closely related’ (ANS TV cited by Day.az, December 4, 5).

The Turkish parliament’s foreign policy commission
chairman, Suat Kiniklioglu, corroborated this view in a public debate in
Brussels. While Turkey-Armenia normalization has the potential to
dramatically improve the overall situation in the South Caucasus,
`it would be incomprehensible and illogical to normalize
relations on one side while maintaining a conflict on the other
side’ (Day.az, December 4).

Ankara was slow to clarify its position in recent months. For its
part, Washington put domestic politics ahead of strategic
considerations. To deflect pressures from Armenian advocacy groups and a
large part of the U.S. Congress, the Obama administration decided to
push for re-opening the Turkish-Armenian border before April 2010, when
the Armenian genocide resolution comes up for reconsideration in
Congress. Candidate Obama had promised to sign such a resolution, but
President Obama cannot do so. Instead, the White House decided in April
2009 (at the time of Obama’s visit to Turkey) to press for
re-opening the Turkish-Armenian land border, hoping to defuse the
explosive potential from the annual political debate on the genocide
issue.

This course of action, however, could only be pursued at
Azerbaijan’s expense and at the risk of fracturing the
Turkey-Azerbaijan partnership, instead of nurturing it. That partnership
largely accounts for the West’s strategic gains in the South
Caucasus-Caspian region over the past decade. Strained recently by
Russian advances in the region and a burgeoning Russo-Turkish
partnership, the West’s gains could be severely jeopardized by
policies that isolate Azerbaijan or sacrifice its interests.

Baku does recognize–as presidential adviser Novruz Mammadov has
put it (, December 6)–that the U.S. initiative to help
normalize Turkey-Armenia relations can generate positive dynamics for
regional cooperation, if this initiative is synchronized with Karabakh
conflict-resolution. But it would only exacerbate tensions in the
region, if the two processes are separated, instead of converging.

–Vladimir Socor