TURKEY AND ARMENIA
Arab News
46571.ece
April 23 2010
Saudi Arabia
The breakdown in the normalization of relations between Turkey and
Armenia is not simply, as some Armenians are claiming, because of
Turkish unwillingness to accept the extent of the 1915 killings of
Armenian Turks or recognize them as genocide.
The administration of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to
have underestimated the wider effects of a wider rapprochement with
the Armenians. The Azeri government, which is in dispute with Armenia
over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, was incensed at the protocols
to build links between Ankara and Yerevan. As a result Erdogan flew
to Baku to assure the Azeris that the deal with the Armenians would
not be put forward for ratification by the Turkish Parliament, until
some progress was being made on the resolution of the issue of the
enclave, currently occupied by Armenian forces. Erdogan’s statement
in turn angered the Armenians, who pointed out that in the protocols
they inked with the Turks, there was no reference whatsoever to
Nagorno-Karabakh. Aware that the deal was turning sour, in advance
of the appearance of both countries at US President Barack Obama’s
recent Nuclear Security Summit, Erdogan sent his foreign minister to
Yerevan to see if he could fix up a meeting in the US with Armenian
President Serge Sarkisian. That meeting did not happen. Instead,
Yerevan Friday stopped the ratification process blaming Turkey’s
"inconsistent and evasive position and policy of preconditions". The
Armenians also opened a new front in their drive to have the Turks
accept their contention that the 1915 massacres in eastern Turkey
saw 1.5 million perish and amounted to genocide. They have invited
Turkish historians to visit their national archive containing some
7,000 documents relating to these events.
Although the 1915 slayings still loom large in the minds of Armenians,
they are past business. Nagorno-Karabakh is present business. It seems
extraordinary that Erdogan could have made the mistake of not alluding
to the Azeris’ concerns during original talks with the Armenians. Then
he compounded the error by assuring the Azeris that the protocols
would not be ratified before progress was made over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Turkish diplomatic service remains one of the country’s most
efficient elites and would surely have warned Erdogan on both courses
of action.
Nationalists in both countries will be pleased that the reconciliation
process has been stymied, for the moment at least. Yet both Erdogan
and Sarkisian must surely realize the drivers which caused them each
to sign the protocols in Zurich in 2009 have not changed. For both
countries, the economic and strategic benefits of friendly relations
are considerable. For Ankara they represent the foundation on which
can be built wider connections with the rest of the Caucasus.
Azerbaijan could also benefit from good ties between Turkey and
Armenia, because Turkey could offer its good offices to help find
a settlement on the enclave. As things now stand again, no one is
the winner — everyone, including the Azeris is losing out. The ball
seems to be in Erdogan’s court. Maybe sending Turkish historians to
examine the Armenian 1915 archive might be a good return shot.