TURKEY AND ARMENIA: FOCUSING ON THE POSSIBLE, NOT HOPING FOR THE BEST
by Sabine Freizer
Today’s Zaman
April 27 2010
Turkey
Last week’s announcement that the Armenian parliament is suspending its
consideration of the twin protocols signed by the Turkish and Armenian
presidents in October 2009 is another blow to the Turkish-Armenian
reconciliation process.
But it also may be an opportunity to focus on the possible, rather
than hope for the best, in improving Turkish-Armenian relations.
The protocols aimed to establish diplomatic relations between Turkey
and Armenia, recognize and open their mutual border and set up a
joint historical commission. The last two steps cannot happen in the
near future. So it is time for the leadership in Ankara and Yerevan
to focus clearly on the first two. In the past 18 months high-level
officials from both countries have met an extraordinary number of
times. At a minimum, that relationship should now be formalized to
benefit average citizens in need of basic consular services.
The Turkey-Armenia border was closed in 1993 when Armenian forces
occupied districts of Azerbaijan surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. The hope
last October was that an open border could gradually help encourage
a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, buttressing the ongoing
talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan brokered by the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Growing contacts could
lead to economic development and greater regional stability and a
more balanced Turkish engagement in the South Caucasus.
Azerbaijan, however, did not see it that way. In spring 2009, Baku’s
leadership began to appeal not only to Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan but also to the Turkish opposition to keep the border
shut until its occupied territories were liberated. It threatened
Turkey’s preferential price for its Shah Deniz natural gas supplies
and chances of greater volume to feed the planned Nabucco transit
pipeline to Europe. In January of this year, for the first time,
Azerbaijan provided significant amounts of gas to Russia. Popular
mood against Turkey hardened in Baku, with official support and even
puppets of Turkey’s leaders being burned in some protests.
Turkish leaders decided that they could not ignore Azerbaijani
pressure and with difficult negotiations going on concerning
constitutional reform, they do not want to pick a fight over
border opening with nationalists in the parliamentary opposition —
and within their own ruling party. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan
made increasingly unambiguous statements that without progress on
settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the border would not open,
even though this was the strategy applied by Ankara since 1993 with
little conflict resolution effect.
In the past several months Turkey did succeed in contributing to
reinvigorating efforts to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict under
the aegis of the OSCE Minsk Group. Armenia and Azerbaijan are closer
than ever to signing the agreement on basic principles that they
have been considering since 2005. But they have not narrowed their
differences on the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh. While there has
been some movement on defining an "interim status" for the entity,
Armenia insists that it should have the right to self determination
including secession from Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan says that its
territorial integrity cannot be violated.
The Armenian government also did little over the past several months
to reaffirm its commitment to difficult aspects of the protocols.
Rather it tried to distance itself from the establishment of
a committee on the historical dimension "including an impartial
scientific examination of the historical records and archives." For
Armenians such a commission is generally perceived as a fundamental
violation of their very national identity. They don’t accept that "the
genocide fact" can be discussed. Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan
made this most clear in an April interview to Der Spiegel criticizing
the idea of a historical commission as "calling into question the
fact of the genocide perpetrated against our people."
Both the Armenian and Turkish leadership comes out of the past months
weakened. Armenian President Sarksyan has been heavily criticized
by his opposition for making too many concessions to the Turkish
side, believing that the border could open despite Azerbaijan’s firm
opposition and losing a realistic chance in 2009 that US President
Barack Obama would state that he recognized the mass killings and
deportations of Ottoman Armenians 1915 as genocide. The Armenian
parliamentary decision is a victory for the more hard-line Armenian
diaspora and a defeat of Armenian sovereign foreign policy making.
But with the freezing of the protocols, the Turkish leadership also
lost a chance to stave off the international recognition of genocide,
as few countries would move on recognition knowing that an inter-state
body was looking into it. In the run-up to the centennial anniversary
of the atrocities, international recognition of genocide is likely
to gain pace.
The decade of confidence building that preceded the Turkey-Armenian
protocol signing could now too be lost. Instead, the best step
right now would be for Ankara and Yerevan to put aside the most
difficult aspects of the protocols but move ahead with their less
controversial parts. Despite current troubles, they could proceed
with the establishment of diplomatic ties and recognition of their
mutual border. These need no parliamentary approval, are purely about
bilateral relations and are not linked to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Turkey and Armenia have a mounting number of bilateral issues to
address requiring simple consular services. There are up to 40,000
Armenian citizens living in Turkey, tens of thousands of Armenian
tourists visit the Turkish Riviera every year and countless Turkish
truck drivers and small businesses operate in Armenia. There are easy
opportunities to develop many Turkey-Armenia activities even if the
border remains closed. But currently none of these can get effective
support from their home country.
To address such basic practical matters, Turkey and Armenia should
recognize their borders and establish diplomatic relations. Even in
the current difficult diplomatic climate, the leaders of Turkey and
Armenia can and should take these initial steps to ensure that their
people can build up a prosperous future side-by-side and eventually
come to terms with their shared traumatic history.
*Sabine Freizer is the Europe program director of the International
Crisis Group.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
