IS AGREEMENT BETWEEN ARMENIA AND TURKEY POSSIBLE?
PanARMENIAN.Net
Analytical Department
22.12.2007 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The treaties make provisions for the Armenian
border, i.e. including Kars, Ardaghan, Surmalu and Trabzon. In
fact Turkey violates those articles of the treaty, which set the
Armenian-Turkish borders. Perhaps, this had its significant role in
the fact that the most part of Western Armenia is inhabited by Kurds
and Armenians. In the meantime Turkey raises the issue of recognition
of the current borders by RA, which is nothing but a serious concern
for national security of Armenia. It is natural that Yerevan cannot
go for it. The second and perhaps the most painful precondition
set by Turkey is the denial of the international recognition of the
Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Turkey in 1915-1923. Even if these
two preconditions can still be somehow understood, though it’s quite
difficult, the third one is worthless any comments. Ankara insists
on resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh problem to Azerbaijan’s benefit,
by the way, explaining the closing of the borders in 1993 by the
Karabakh conflict. According to the RA Minister of Foreign Affairs
Vartan Oskanyan, Turkey has nothing at all to do in the regulation of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict; Turkey cannot have any influence on
the resolution of this process. "The international practice doesn’t
allow interference of any interested party in the conflict resolution
process," said Oskanyan.
In the international community the first condition for normalizing
the relations is the opening of borders and this cannot be a
precondition. This was announced in Yerevan too and the EU special
representative to the South Caucasus Peter Semneby emphasized that
closing the borders is nothing but anomaly. "Armenia and Turkey need
to come to an agreement for the sake of the future. The EU is ready
to assist them in this process, but we believe that both parties
should come to a compromise. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the two
countries have a common future. Of course this is a long process, which
should be carried out carefully, step by step. Armenia and Turkey
have different viewpoints on the events of 1915 and the Karabakh
problem. But Armenia speaks for healing the relations without any
preconditions, while Turkey practices just the opposite viewpoint. This
is where compromise should be sought," said Semneby. In his turn,
the Head of the "Hay Dat" Office Giro Manoyan mentioned that Turkey’s
integration into the EU will definitely close all the ways for Armenia
to Europe. "Turkey’s integration into the EU at this moment will close
all the ways for Armenia to Europe, since now Turkey creates all sorts
of prohibitions for Armenia, trying to deprive our country of the
membership in international organizations and the chance of joining
the international negotiations," said Manoyan and added, that Turkey
will only use the EU in its own interests. He also believes that the
negotiations with Turkey on the EU membership have started without
the approval of all the EU Member-States, which already points at
political intentions of the USA and the Great Britain. "It is not
excluded that Turkey will be integrated into the EU with the same
political intentions, however, with its current views Ankara will
not carry out any reforms," said Manoyan.
As for the issue of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey doesn’t recognize it
not only because of its political convictions, or the so-called "insult
of Turkishness", but because of the huge financial compensation,
which will immediately follow the recognition. "According to official
documents the responsibility that Turkey carries for the damage it
caused during 1914-1919, the years when the Genocide was committed,
makes $415 milliard. In January 1919 the Paris Peace Conference
completed its works, whose main aim was concluding a peace treaty and
considering all aspects of war, including the compensations for the
damage caused by the war. Subsequently a working group was formed,
which estimated the damage done to the parties and nations, which were
not the immediate participants of the war. According to the report of
the working group, the sum of the damage to the Armenian nation in
Western and Eastern Armenia during 1914-1919 made more than 19.130
milliard francs, or more than $41.5 milliard, since for such cases
the exchange rate of franc to dollar is 1 to $2.17. Here the material
damage caused in 1920-1923 is not mentioned. If this period is also
taken into consideration, the above mentioned sum will definitely
be enlarged with minimum 20%, believes the historian and diplomat
Ara Papyan.