Experts say that in the recent period the high levels of the Turkish and Armenian governments have activated their communications. Also, it is a very surprising fact that in this hard post-election period for the new president of Armenia the Turkish president Abdullah Gull was one of the first foreign presidents to congratulate him. Also, Rejep Erdogan did not miss the opportunity to congratulate the new prime minister Tigran Sargsyan. He not only warmly congratulated the Armenian prime minister, but also informed that developing friendly relations between Armenia and Turkey is a priority issue in Turkey. The Armenian side did not wait long to answer and soon the Armenian prime minister sent a letter to his Turkish colleague, in which he informed that he was ready to develop inter-governmental relations without any preconditions. Foreign affairs minister Edward Nalbandyan’s announcements concerning this issue have been like the previous ones too. Such processes and announcements have served a reason for famous international media companies to come to a conclusion that the parties may launch non-official talks in the soon future to develop diplomatic relations between these two countries. Also, during the last two weeks different geopolitical centers supported this process as well. In the middle of last week the U.S. deputy state secretary Daniel Frid made a speech at the foreign affairs committee of the Congress in Washington and said the following: “The U.S. think that the border between Armenia and Turkey should be opened.” According to him, “both of the countries will benefit from developing trade relations, connecting the electric stations and doing other things characteristic to neighbor countries.” However, despite the previous announcements the American official also identified the key factors of compromising and developing friendly relations between the two states. According to Frid, in order to solve the problems between the two states, they should be able to address painful issues. “Turkey will have to face the dark page of its history when during the last period of the Osman Empire about one and half million Armenians were killed and exiled,” said the U.S. deputy state secretary when explaining the compromise Turkey should undertake. “It is not so easy, but it was not easy for the U.S. either to face the dark pages of its history as well,” he said. What are the compromises Armenia should do? It turns out that Armenia should be ready to recognize the existing borders, refuse any demands from the existing territories of Turkey, as well as have a constructive approach to any peace initiatives on part of Turkey. Recently the U.S. Charge d’Affaires Joseph Pennington touched upon that issue as well. In other words, it feels like something is being arranged in close conditions and soon there will be concrete actions. This happened in a period when we did not expect it at all because the situation is tense and the new president does not need such rapid change in the political environment. However it is a fact that during the official visit to Moscow the president of Armenia announced at the meeting with Diaspora representatives that he was going to make several steps toward developing diplomatic relations with Turkey. The first step is inviting the Turkish president to watch the Turkish-Armenian football play on September 6. The second one is actual agreement with a suggestion proposed by Turkey and refused by Armenia to establish a commission consisting of historians in charge of examining the history. Certainly there is an important precondition developed by the Armenian president, which is that all these things can be done after opening the Armenian-Turkish border. It is not hard to imagine the reaction of the Armenian Diaspora and the Armenian society on the official consent of Yerevan to convene a commission in charge of examining the historical facts (however no one is against the idea of watching the football game together). This idea was sharply criticized by the Armenian opposition, starting from the anti-Turkish Henchak party and Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s loyalists who are blamed of a pro-Turkish policy. “In such conditions, when thousands of citizens of the Republic of Armenia are rejecting the legitimacy of Serzh Sargsyan’s presidency, we think that it is quite unacceptable to come up with such announcement. Even a legitimate president or the parliament or any other state body does not have such right,” said the trustees and the coordination board of the Armenian intelligentsia forum. Furthermore, Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s spokesman Arman Musinyan says that Serzh Sargsyan’s consent drives the issue of the Armenian genocide under question. Even the ARF party, which has been in “conformism” during the past several years, broke the silence and showed some small disagreements. ARF member Kiro Manoyan says that the president has been given bad advises. Anyway, it was not difficult to foresee that Serzh Sargsyan’s announcements would bring to serious political difficulties in the country. Even Azeri experts agree with this fact. From this point of view it is logical that a serious politician like Serzh Sargsyan should have more than reasonable grounds to make such steps in this hard and tense post-election environment.
Certainly the new direction in the Armenian-Turkish relations is first of all connected with foreign political factors, and the “catalysts” of this process are the recent political developments in Armenia. We have already mentioned that the U.S. is pretty active and sensitive to this issue. It is natural that the U.S. is pushing Serzh Sargsyan to make actual steps. As for the adequate moment for making such announcements, it has been chosen pragmatically. It is a good time for Serzh Sargsyan to weaken the post-election pressure on Serzh Sargsyan after the recent presidential election. It is very important because the U.S. is the most important geopolitical power to re-establish new rules of game with (there are some clarifications and agreements with Europe and Russia). Through such decisive steps Serzh Sargsyan can also make the U.S. understand that unlike president Kocharyan he can be a better partner for them to implement the confidential deals. Finally, with this blitz action Serzh Sargsyan wants also to neutralize the factor of Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who is representing the foreign world under the image of a politician who is loyal to the Western values and is flexible and likes peace. From this point of view, the strict ideas in the announcement of Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s movement concerning the Armenian-Turkish relations can become an additional factor for Serzh Sargsyan. Of course there is a possibility that Serzh Sargsyan hopes that such small preconditions can be accepted negatively by the Turkish society and government. In such case the image of a non-constructive neighbor that Armenia has will be transferred to Turkey. Definitely this is also one of the reasons why Serzh Sargsyan moved the ball to Turkey’s field. However these hopes may not come true because the American government accepted this announcement in Moscow with great pleasure. For example, the head of the department of Eurasia policies of the American Hadson Institute Zeino Baran, who is the U.S. co-chairman Mathew Bryza’s wife, managed to touch upon the “non-official” opinion of the U.S. government as well. “Football is an important thing in the life of the Armenian and Turkish people, and the soul of that game can help them become closer on a non-political level. I don’t see any reasons to refuse the invitation, especially when it complies with the constructive approach of president Abdullah Gull toward all the neighboring countries,” said Mrs Baran. As for Matthew Bryza, who says that there is some difference between the policies of Kocharyan and Sargsyan, says that “he hopes that this surprising progressive step will result in discussion of the tragic past of the two friendly countries of the United States.” By the way, in order to support that process the latter addressed an interesting message to the Turkish government and said that he believes that Turkey’s integration with Europe will be a benefit both for Turkey and Europe.
Of course it doesn’t mean that the place where the announcements concerning the Armenian and Turkish relations were made had been chosen by chance. The fact that it happened in Moscow and after a number of official meetings with high ranked officials means that the main theses of Serzh Sargsyan have been agreed with Armenia’s ally as well. Definitely it is a classic example of compliance of the geopolitical and regional interests of the United States and Russia. It is not a secret that the relations between Moscow and Ankara have become closer during the past two years. During this period there have been eight meetings in participation with the leaders of these two countries. In Russia Turkey is considered not only an interesting regional political factor but also a big market and transit country for large energetic projects in the future. From a bigger global point of view Moscow is also interested in forming and developing Moscow-Baku-Ankara economic and political cooperation direction. One of the facts that can prove this point is that during the period of Medvedev’s official visit to Azerbaijan the foreign affairs minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov was in Ankara. At the same time, the tension in the relations between Russia and Georgia are making Russia to look for new alternative directions and transport connections in South Caucasus for its sole ally in Caucasus. Also it is not clear what will happen to the other neighbor of Armenia, Iran, because the future of the conflict between the U.S. and Iran is not clear either. In other words, in the framework of serving for Russia’s geopolitical and economic interests the vision of opening the borders with turkey and developing relations is becoming an important factor. Meanwhile, due to the Armenian president’s announcements in Moscow the Russian government got certain political benefits in order to show to the American and Turkish governments that it can easily influence on the Armenian government. It is also due to attention that Serzh Sargsyan made those announcements on the threshold of Russian FM Sergey Lavrov’s visit to Ankara. Certainly the issue of Karabakh should have been a part of the Russian-Turkish negotiations as well and the possibility of settling the Karabakh conflict and developing relations between Armenia and Turkey should have been discussed as well.
In other words, the process has been launched and the interested geopolitical centers have turned on the watch but it is not clear yet whether Ankara and Yerevan will be able to resist the speed of the suggested “game”. Especially we wander whether the new government can resist because all the activities on the part of the new government so far have only given new resources to the opposition to struggle. Now let’s follow the processes and see what will happen…