TURKEY AND ARMENIA PAVE WAY FOR HISTORIC ACCORDS
By Marc Champion
Wall Street Journal
50480025.html
April 2 2009
Neighbors’ Bid to Open Border and Establish Ties Could Sideline
Genocide Dispute, Improve Security for Fuel Pipeline to West
BRUSSELS — Turkey and Armenia could soon announce a deal aimed at
reopening their border and restoring relations, according to diplomats,
a move that could help stabilize a region that’s increasingly important
as a transit route for oil and gas.
The timing of the deal is being choreographed with the schedule
of U.S. President Barack Obama, who visits Turkey next week, these
people say.
The Turkish and Armenian governments have agreed on terms to open
formal talks in three areas: opening and fixing borders, restoring
diplomatic relations and setting up commissions to look at disputes,
including one on the tense history between the two nations, according
to the diplomats, all of whom declined to be named due to the
sensitivity of the talks.
There is strong opposition to a deal in both countries, as well as in
Armenia’s neighbor Azerbaijan. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in
1993 to protest Armenia’s occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in
Azerbaijan, following a bloody war. That conflict remains unresolved.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the media
at the headquarters of his Justice and Development Party, the AKP,
in Ankara, Turkey, on Sunday.
But an accord would be seen in Western capitals as a major potential
success that could help to open up and stabilize the Caucasus. The
region is studded with unresolved conflicts and hostile borders,
and saw war between Russia and Georgia in August.
Normalizing relations between Turkey and Armenia would "create a new
and positive dynamic" in relations across the region, "as well as
in developing the economic and transport links we have been pursuing
ever since the collapse of the former Soviet Union," said U.S. Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Matthew J. Bryza, the State Department’s
point man in the Caucasus.
Mr. Bryza travels to Azerbaijan Thursday to discuss how a
Turkish-Armenian agreement could help revive efforts for a settlement
on Nagorno-Karabakh.
Announcement of a Turkish-Armenian pact is also being influenced by
Mr. Obama’s campaign promise to support a Congressional resolution
that would recognize as genocide the Ottoman Empire’s 1915 killing
of up to 1.5 million Armenians in what is now central and eastern
Turkey. Turkey fiercely denies the killings were genocide. The White
House traditionally makes a statement to mark Armenian Remembrance
Day on April 24.
Analysts say Turkey’s government hopes progress in reviving its
relations with Armenia could prompt the White House not to recognize
the killings as genocide and to block the Congressional resolution.
If the U.S. proceeds with the genocide resolution, "I cannot imagine
any Turkish government opening the Armenian border," said Ozgur
Unluhisarcikli, director of the Ankara office of the German Marshall
Fund of the United States, a think tank.
A Senior Turkish foreign-policy official said the U.S. is trying to
facilitate the agreement with Armenia. Turkish and Armenian officials
declined to comment on the status of their talks.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said on Turkish
television last week he would discuss Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian
"genocide" and relations between Russia and Georgia with the
U.S. president, among other issues.
Mr. Obama’s decision to make Turkey the final, two-day stop on his
European tour has been welcomed in Ankara as a sign of the country’s
strategic importance.
Turkey, a secular Muslim nation of 70 million people, is taking on a
growing role as a regional player in the Caucasus and the Middle East.
Turkey opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and refused to let
its territory be used for the assault. Now the U.S. again wants to
use its bases in Turkey for Iraq, but this time to withdraw troops —
something much easier for Ankara to accept.
Turkey could also prove a helpful ally in the Mideast, where it has
played a mediating role between Syria and Israel and has offered to
mediate with Iran.
One date under discussion for signing the deal with Armenia, diplomats
say, is April 16. But Mr. Unluhisarcikli said he believes Turkey and
Armenia won’t be ready to sign the deal before April 24, and Turkey
instead will "signal" its commitment to reopen the borders in the
hope that will be enough for Washington.
Russia’s invasion of Georgia last August opened the door for Turkey
to become more heavily engaged in the Caucasus. The war showed
the limitations of U.S. and EU influence in the region and exposed
the extent of Armenia’s isolation. When Russia cut Georgia’s main
East-West railway by blowing up a bridge in August, it also cut off
the dominant supply route to Armenia, a close Russian ally.
The war in Georgia also showed the vulnerability of pipelines that have
been carrying oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan to Western markets
via Georgia since 2006. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carries 1
million barrels of crude per day to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. The
pipelines were targeted unsuccessfully during the Georgia war.
–Nicholas Birch in Istanbul contributed to this article.
Write to Marc Champion at [email protected]