TURKEY, ARMENIA: FOOTBALL DIPLOMACY
Monday Morning
Sept 15 2008
Lebanon
Armenia’s President Serzh Sarkissian (right) gestures as he meets
his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul in Yerevan on September 6. Gul
traveled to Armenia to attend the match between the two countries in
a visit expected to ease relations between them
Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul returned from Armenia last week with
hopes of "normalizing" troubled ties, boosted by the announcement
from Yerevan of an official high-level meeting in New York.
As Turkish newspapers warned against squandering the opportunity
presented by Gul’s landmark visit, the first by a Turkish leader,
his attendance at a World Cup qualifying football match between the
two countries paid an early dividend.
A day after the talks with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkissian,
Armenia announced on September 8 that the foreign ministers of both
countries would meet formally on the sidelines of the UN General
Assembly later this month.
Armenia’s Eduard Nalbandian and Turkey’s Ali Babacan would meet in
New York, a statement from the Foreign Ministry said.
"The Armenian and Turkish ministers have expressed their willingness to
normalize bilateral relations. They have underlined that all necessary
measures should be taken towards that end", the statement added.
Speaking to reporters on his return flight, Gul said a major obstacle
to talks had been overcome with his trip.
"I believe my visit has demolished a psychological barrier in the
Caucasus", Gul was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as saying. "If
this climate continues, everything will move forward and normalize".
Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic ties and their border has been
closed for more than a decade.
Their relationship has been taken hostage by deep differences over
the treatment by the Ottoman Turkish authorities of Armenians during
World War I.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their people were systematically
killed by the Ottoman Turks in an act of genocide between 1915 and
1917 as their empire fell apart — a claim supported by several
other countries.
Turkey rejects the genocide label, arguing that 300,000-500,000
Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when
Armenians took up arms for independence in Eastern Anatolia and sided
with invading Russian troops.
Gul said neither the dispute nor the closed border figured in his
meeting with Sarkissian, in a sign that the two leaders were careful
to avoid contentious issues.
Gul said his Armenian host made no reference to "the so-called
genocide claims".
The Turkish press ran jubilant headlines on Sunday, with the
conservative Zaman newspaper described the visit as "new era" in
bilateral ties and the popular Milliyet speaking of "a beginning full
of hope."
"Double victory in Yerevan," the mass-circulation Sabah said, in
reference to the talks and the Turkish national team’s 2-0 victory
over Armenia in the World Cup qualifier.
"It is obvious that history cannot be forgotten… But what is
important is not to be taken hostage by history or the pain of the
past", commentator Hasan Cemal wrote in Milliyet.
Political analyst Cengiz Candar warned that a failure to live up to
raised hopes could worsen the mood.
"There will be great disappointment if the rapprochment triggered by
football is not followed by the establishment of diplomatic ties and
the opening of the border", he said.
"It would be much more difficult to cross the chasm created by that
than the current difficulties," he added.
Even though Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Armenia
when the former Soviet republic declared independence in 1991, Ankara
has refused to establish diplomatic ties on account of Yerevan’s
campaign to have the 1915-1917 massacres recognized as genocide.
In 1993 Turkey shut its border with Armenia in a show of solidarity
with its close ally Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh — an
Armenian-majority enclave in Azerbaijan which declared independence —
dealing a heavy blow to the impoverished country.