ARMENIAN ANALYST CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC ON TURKISH RAPPROCHEMENT

news.az
April 19 2010
Azerbaijan

Richard Giragosian News.Az interviews Richard Giragosian, director
of the Armenian Centre for National and International Studies.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan met in Washington. Will the meeting affect the Turkish
government’s position on rapprochement with Armenia?

Although it is still too early to fully evaluate the recent meeting
between the Turkish prime minister and Armenian president, there are
some positive signs that the process of delicate diplomacy between
the two countries remains ongoing. Despite the lack of specific
information, with all sides waiting until after 24 April before
releasing any details, the meetings seem to have overcome the deadlock
over the stalled ‘protocols’ between Armenia and Turkey.

Interestingly, the recent meetings were actually not about the
protocols and were not focused on the ratification of the protocols.

Rather, the meetings concentrated on finding a way to overcome or even
bypass the deadlocked protocols. In other words, this was an effort
not to ratify the protocols but to move forward and to discuss the
implementation of the terms of the protocols.

Is any action expected from the Armenian side?

Yes and no. On the one hand, Armenia is now committed to staying
engaged in the process with no real threat that Armenia will pull
out or withdraw its signature form the October 2009 protocols, as
they have threatened to do in recent months. But at the same time,
the burden and expectations remain on Turkey, not Armenia. In many
ways, Armenia has done all it could and all it should regarding this
process of engagement and diplomacy with Turkey.

Can the Washington meetings be described as successful in terms of
Karabakh? How will they influence the conflict settlement and what
changes can be expected?

Obviously, the fact that Azerbaijan was not invited to the Nuclear
Security Summit was significant. It seems that despite the logic and
need to have Azerbaijan, as a neighbour of Iran, at the summit, the
decision was that it was more important to prevent Azerbaijan from
any chance of disrupting the meetings between Turkey and Armenia. A
related fact is that the US side only reaffirmed its position that
Nagorno-Karabakh should not be a precondition or have any direct link
to the Armenian-Turkish diplomatic process.

Do you think the United States is sincerely interested in the complete
settlement of the Karabakh conflict?

Again, to be honest, yes and no. The strategic necessity of resolving
the Karabakh conflict is, of course, a US goal. For the US it is key,
as the last ‘frozen’ conflict in the region, to ensuring lasting
stability and security in the South Caucasus. But the priority now is
Armenian-Turkish engagement, which seems more realistic and somewhat
easier and has the potential to help the related process of mediating
the Karabakh conflict.

What do you expect from US President Obama’s traditional speech on
24 April, marked by the Armenian community as Genocide Memorial Day?

In light of the recent meetings, and the US role in brokering the
talks, I do not expect that President Obama will choose to use the
‘genocide’ word in his annual message on 24 April. But I do think
that he has made it quite clear that his choice to refraining from
using the genocide word, last year or this year, does not necessarily
mean that he has changed his position on the Armenian genocide.

Instead, I believe that he sees that the delicate window of opportunity
for Armenia and Turkey, both last year and now, as too significant
to possibly disrupt by invoking the term. But he may use the issue
as leverage against Turkey at some later point if the Turkish side
fails to meet its expectations for a breakthrough with Armenia.

In this way, the genocide issue may be used as a penalty for Turkey,
if Ankara misses this historic opportunity to normalize relations
with Armenia. And although in this context, the Armenian genocide
issue is related to US-Turkish relations as well as Armenian-Turkish
diplomacy, it is in no way linked or related to either US relations
with Azerbaijan or with the Karabakh conflict.