THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: DEAL BETWEEN TURKEY AND ARMENIA IS UNDER GROWING THREAT OF COLLAPSE
PanARMENIAN.Net
28.01.2010 15:49 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A deal between Turkey and Armenia to open their
border and establish diplomatic relations after generations of dispute
over genocide allegations and territory is under growing threat of
collapse, the Wall Street Journal says in an article.
According to the author of the publication, Armenia is pushing for
rapid ratification of the Protocols, signed in October, while Turkey
has a longer time frame. On Wednesday, Azerbaijan President Ilham
Aliyev added to concerns for the deal when he said he was confident
Turkey wouldn’t ratify the agreement until Armenia has returned Azeri
territory that it occupies, including the mainly ethnic Armenian
region of Nagorno Karabakh.
"There is a common understanding in the region that there should
be a first step by Armenia to start the liberation of the occupied
territories," Mr. Aliyev said in an interview with The Wall Street
Journal in the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland. He said he was "fully satisfied" with Turkey’s
understanding of the issue, despite harshly criticizing Turkey’s
handling of it in the past.
"If the two issues are disconnected, then probably Armenia will freeze
negotiations with Azerbaijan (over Nagorno Karabakh)," said Mr.
Aliyev, adding that he believed economic pressure was one of the main
incentives for Armenia to come to the table. Mr. Aliyev has warned
previously that such an outcome could lead to renewed war.
Turkey’s leaders, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
have said repeatedly that the border opening and settlement of the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict are linked.
There is no sign of progress in the 15-year-old peace talks. But some
ambiguity remains in Turkey’s position. The territorial dispute isn’t
mentioned in October’s protocols.
Turkish officials, by contrast, talk about an open-ended process that
could last a year or more if necessary. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu also recently expressed anger at a decision by Armenia’s
constitutional court that he said in effect puts conditions on the
deal-a claim Mr. Sargsyan dismissed.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in protest at the
occupation by Armenia-backed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and seven
districts around it that were seized as buffer zones. But in the
wake of the war between Georgia and Russia in August 2008, Turkey’s
government said it was ready to negotiate an end to Armenia’s
isolation, as Ankara sought a bigger role in the Caucasus region.
By last sring, the two sides had drafted protocols outlining a deal
that would open the borders, establish diplomatic and trade relations
and set up a joint commission to examine historical issues, including
the 1915 Ottoman massacre of up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians,
in what is now Eastern Turkey, which Armenia and many historians
consider genocide. But Turkey’s leaders refused at the last minute to
sign, in the face of fierce opposition from Mr. Aliyev and opponents
within Turkey.
The Protocols aimed at normalization of bilateral ties and opening of
the border between Armenia and Turkey were signed in Zurich by Armenian
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet
Davutoglu on October 10, 2009, after a series of diplomatic talks
held through Swiss mediation.
On January 12, 2010, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of
Armenia found the protocols conformable to the country’s Organic Law.
Following the decision, the Turkish Foreign Ministry issued an official
statement concerning the deal. It runs particularly as follows:
"The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia has declared
its decision of constitutional conformity on the Protocols between
Turkey and Armenia signed on 10 October 2009 with a short statement
on 12 January 2010. The Constitutional Court has recently published
its grounds of decision. It has been observed that this decision
contains preconditions and restrictive provisions which impair the
letter and spirit of the Protocols.
The said decision undermines the very reason for negotiating these
Protocols as well as their fundamental objective. This approach
cannot be accepted on our part," says the statement posted on Turkish
MFA website.
The conflict between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan broke out in
1988 as result of the ethnic cleansing the latter launched in the
final years of the Soviet Union. The Karabakh War was fought from
1991 to 1994. Since the ceasefire in 1994, sealed by Armenia, Nagorno
Karabakh and Azerbaijan, most of Nagorno Karabakh and several regions
of Azerbaijan around it (the security zone) remain under the control
of NKR defense army. Armenia and Azerbaijan are holding peace talks
mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group up till now.
The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic
destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during
and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres, and
deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to
lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths
reaching 1.5 million.
The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be
April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250
Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.
Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes
and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of
food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were
indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse
commonplace. The Armenian Genocide is the second most-studied case
of genocide after the Holocaust.
The Republic of Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire,
denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events. In
recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as
genocide.
To date, twenty countries and 44 U.S. states have officially recognized
the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars
and historians accept this view. The Armenian Genocide has been also
recognized by influential media including The New York Times, BBC,
The Washington Post and The Associated Press.
The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the
Genocide survivors.