rmenian-maneuvering-conyinues-2010-04-08

Turkish- Armenian maneuvering continues
Thursday, April 8, 2010

Semih Ä°diz

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a surprise development this
week, sent Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu to
Yerevan as his private envoy, bearing a letter addressed to Armenian
President Serge Sarkisian.

ErdoÄ?an asked for a meeting with Sarkisian next week in Washington,
where both leaders will attend the summit on nuclear disarmament
hosted by the Obama administration.

In the meantime, there were indications as this piece was being
written that the Armenian parliament could ratify the Zurich
protocols, which were signed a year ago by the foreign ministers of
Turkey and Armenia, and which foresee the normalization of ties
between the two countries.

The ratification and subsequent implementation of the protocols had
stalled due to the different interpretations and conditions the sides
imposed on them later. On the Turkish side, it became instantly
apparent that the `Azeri dimension’ had been underestimated all along.

As voices of protest raised in Azerbaijan found receptive ears in
Turkey, Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an was forced to travel to Baku and assure
his Azerbaijani interlocutors that there would be no ratification
until the Karabakh talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan have started
moving in a positive direction.

This immediately angered Yerevan, which said ` correctly ` that there
is no reference to the Karabakh issue in the protocols, and that this
therefore could not be made a precondition for the implementation of
these protocols.

On the Armenian side, the country’s constitutional court said in a
ruling that the protocols could not violate the nation’s founding
document, which makes it incumbent on Armenian governments to work to
get international recognition for the genocide Armenians say they
suffered at the hands of Ottoman Turks in 1915.

This in turn angered Ankara, where the government said the protocols
foresee the establishment of an independent commission of historians
to look into the events of 1915. The Turkish side argued that the
Armenian court had prejudged the work of this commission.

Some in Ankara also said the court had created some ambiguity on the
question of whether Armenia actually accepts Turkey’s territorial
integrity, and the present border between the two countries.

Despite the qualifications it brought to the protocols, the Armenian
constitutional court nevertheless deemed them to be in compliance with
the country’s constitution, creating a contradictory situation, since
it was not clear whether the court had endorsed the protocols with
preconditions or without them.

It should, in fact, have been apparent at the start that these
problems would inevitably appear, requiring both governments to act
boldly, and against political odds, in order to ensure that the
protocols are ratified and implemented.

Also overlooked was the fact that nationalist sentiment and mutual
animosity run deep between the two peoples, which is, after all, the
basic reason why we are where we are today. The serious problems that
the Armenian diaspora is in a position to cause were also
underestimated.

given this backdrop, one wonders what Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an’s motive
was in sending a high-level envoy to President Sarkisian at this point
in time. One also wonders why the Armenian parliament has started to
debate the protocols in question, with a view to possibly ratifying
them, given that it recently adopted a bill enabling Armenia to
withdraw its signature from the protocols.

It is not hard to see that the sides are playing a kind of diplomatic
checkers game here, since a chess game requires little more
sophistication. The basic effort seems to be not to appear the spoiler
in front of the international community in terms of the attempts to
normalize ties, and to try to shift the blame to the other side.

It was telling, for example, that it was announced that Ambassador
SinirlioÄ?lu was going to Yerevan while Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an was in
Paris ` where he also met French President Nicolas Sarkozy ` and just
prior to traveling to Washington for next week’s nuclear summit.

ErdoÄ?an is also expected to have a bilateral meeting with President
Obama while there, now that the chill in ties ` which emerged after
the Foreign Relations Committee of the House of Representatives
adopted an Armenian `genocide’ resolution ` is ostensibly over.

The U.S. and France are the two countries that have caused the most
headache for Turkey in terms of Armenian `genocide’ resolutions. This
move by ErdoÄ?an also comes, of course, just before President Obama’s
commemorative April 24 message on the events of 1915.

One would not be too cynical in assuming that there is a connection
between all of these, nor to conclude that Ankara is trying to allay
the impression that it is the one that is blocking developments with
Armenia.

But Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an has a serious credibility problem because
of the promise he made to Azerbaijan. He told reporters in Paris this
week that Turkey remains committed to its signature on the Zurich
protocols. But he did not indicate how Ankara would proceed, given the
Karabakh condition it placed on the ratification and implementation of
the protocols.

This appears to leave him with few options. He is either going to have
to take steps that will be construed in Turkey as `selling out’
Azerbaijan, or remain true his promise to Baku, which will merely
create the impression that he is fooling the international community.

Neither is it clear what kind of `electricity’ will be generated from
ErdoÄ?an’s meeting with President Sarkisian next week, given his
ability to be highly abrasive, as evidenced by his continued salvoes
at Israel.

It must also be mentioned here that the U.S. and the EU do not accept
the link ErdoÄ?an has established between normalization of ties with
Armenia and the Karabakh issue. Russia has also said this link is
artificial.

The same applies to Turkey’s interpretation of the Armenian
constitutional court’s ruling. The general international attitude here
is to accept the court’s ruling that the protocols are in compliance
with the constitution at face value.

Given this overall situation, one can also assume that the motive of
the Armenian parliament in debating the Zurich protocols is a
calculated move to apply pressure on Turkey.

It is not hard to see that the government in Yerevan takes it for
granted that the Turkish Parliament will not ratify the protocols
before there is serious movement on the Karabakh issue. But no one
expects serious movement on that issue anytime soon, so the political
risk appears less for Yerevan if it ratifies the protocols. Thus, the
aim on the Armenian side appears to be to try and shift the stigma of
`intransigence’ onto Turkey.

But these are calculations that will not lead the sides anywhere in
terms of normalizing their ties. As we have said on numerous
occasions, this normalization can only come about through brave and
committed leadership on both sides. Unfortunately, we do not see this
at the present time.