Hurriyet, Turkey
March 5 2010

A game of chicken for Turkey and America

Friday, March 5, 2010
Ä°LHAN TANIR

Make no mistake: The successful passage of the Armenian `genocide’
resolution in the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee has started a
very difficult and painful period for all of us who want peaceful
solutions for regional problems.

In my last column, I stated that `a miracle is needed to stop the
resolution at this point.’ Even though the 23-against-22 tally in the
committee looks like it was not an easy win, it was nevertheless a
win. The resolution sailed through from the committee to the hands of
Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House and another staunch supporter
of the bill.

Turkey did not waste time recalling its newly appointed ambassador to
Washington, Namık Tan, back to Ankara for consultations, in an
apparent diplomatic protest. What comes next is the focus of this
column.

Canceling Trade Minister Zafer Ã?aÄ?layan’s upcoming visit to the U.S.
in two weeks would be another opportunity to display the anger of the
Turkish administration, as would Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an’s
scheduled visit to Washington, D.C., in the second week of April for
the nuclear summit ` unless ErdoÄ?an decides to use that visit to
cajole Obama into working harder to stop the bill for the last time.

Mr. Suat KınıklıoÄ?lu , the head of the Turkish-American Caucuses in the
Turkish Parliament, said to me after the voting that `even though the
U.S. administration and the Jewish lobby did not back the Turkish
position this time around, it was still a victory to make the result a
close call. Armenians were relaxed and thought before the vote that
they could have gotten an easy victory; instead, they got a good
beating.’ He added that `this bill will not come to the General
Assembly after what happened Thursday.’

Bryan Ardouny, the executive director of the Armenian Assembly of
America, stated, however, `the committee passed the motion despite a
well-funded lobbying effort by the Turkish government supported by
major defense corporations doing business with Turkey.’

The delegation from the Turkish Parliament that has been worked hard
to lobby against the bill this past week in Washington did not hide
its anger with the Obama administration at the press conference after
the voting. The administration was absent in Washington in showing the
political muscle needed to get the committee members in line.

The Obama administration has told the Turkish administration in many
different venues in recent weeks that it actually views the Armenian
constitutional court’s recent decision, which found the protocols in
line with its constitution, as a positive step for the normalization
process. As Å?ükrü ElekdaÄ?, one of the members of the Turkish
delegation and a member of the main Turkish opposition party, told me
in an interview, it was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European
and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon who elaborated this stance to
Feridun SinirlioÄ?lu, a high official from Ankara who visited
Washington a couple of weeks ago.

I not only confirmed this with other sources in Washington, but also
heard from other reputable sources that Elizabeth Sherwood, senior
director for Europe at the White House, also took a similar stance
when she had a meeting with SinirlioÄ?lu and basically said that
America expects Turkey to move ahead with this process as quickly as
possible.

Spokespeople for both the White House and the State Department have
been quiet for weeks, and it was Michael Hammer, spokesman for the
White House’s National Security Council, who made a statement three
days before the voting, giving the White House’s position on the
resolution for the first time. `As the President’s 2009 Remembrance
Day message states clearly, the President’s … view of that history
has not changed,’ he said. `Our interest remains the achievement of a
full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts.’

There were also personal issues for Obama to deal with while taking a
position on the issue this year. As a senator, he vigorously supported
the previous Armenian resolutions and accused former President Bush
very harshly in the past for working to stop the resolution. As
president, he now finds himself in such a position from which there is
no easy exit strategy. In addition, Vice President Joe Biden and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also supported similar bills in the
past and Congress is dominated by a Democratic majority. Obama hid
behind this quietness and `did not move his little finger,’ as one
Turkish deputy stated.

Where to go from here is the question. There are several factors to
watch now. Turkey lists three obstacles for not stepping forward to
ratify the protocols, the third one just added a day ago: 1) Armenia’s
unwillingness to take any positive action in regard to
Nagorno-Karabakh. 2) The Armenian constitutional court’s preambles to
its decision, which Turkey sees as changing the spirit of the
protocols. 3) With Thursday’s vote, the head of the Turkish
delegation, Murat Mercan, also added another obstacle, and it is for
Obama to stop the `genocide’ bill from coming to the House floor.

Armenia now, amid a victory after the Thursday voting, sees no reason
to make any concessions on any of these issues. Armenia’s responses to
Turkey’s claims are as follows: 1) The Nagorno-Karabakh issue is not a
pre-condition for the protocols, therefore it is not linked to the
ratification process. 2) Armenia, amid the U.S. and other countries’
backing, vows that its constitutional court’s decision is in
conformity with the protocols, therefore the decision is a positive
step for the normalization. In addition, according the constitution of
Armenia, the court’s decisions are final and irreversible, so Armenia
simply claims that there is nothing it can do about this decision now.

3) On top of all these discrepancies, the Armenian officials, starting
with the Armenian ambassador to Washington, who was present at the
committee vote in Congress, and others from the Armenian
administration, welcome the passage’s move to the full House, thinking
they already possess unbending supporters of the Armenian diaspora
cause, such as Nancy Pelosi and Majority leader Steny Hoyer, to name
just two.

Amid an already irate Turkish public and administration, expecting any
kind of positive step from the Turkish administration at this stage is
similar to daydreaming. And likewise the Armenians, who see now
recognition of the `genocide’ by the U.S. House of Representatives
within their reach, will not play nicely either.

So what is left for us while moving forward? What we will see in the
coming days is probably a game of chicken. Turkey will harden its
rhetoric and take more retaliatory steps, while the American side will
calculate that it can use the resolution in the House to put more
pressure on Turkey and hope that Turkey give in to move forward with
the normalization process, while being full aware how important it is
for Turkey to stop the resolution.

We might need to fasten our seatbelts while getting into this
turbulence. How and when this turbulence might end, nobody can predict
now, not even the administrations in Washington, Ankara and Yerevan,
but we hope it will not spin out of control.