Perhaps it is natural to assume that in order to come to contents resolution we should go through the process. However, for Turkey the activation of the Turkish-Armenian relations has always been a goal and not a means. On one hand the Turks perfectly understand that their pre-conditions, according to which Armenia should refuse the genocide recognition, refuse the territorial demands and at least partly resolution of the NKR conflict on behalf of Azerbaijan, is unacceptable for Armenia. On the other hand, by feeling the pressure of the international community on opening the border and recognition of the genocide the Turks have always tried to show that they are involved in a negotiation process with Armenians and that the main issues of the agenda are being actively discussed. Therefore, they are trying to persuade the world that there is no need to mediate the process and that the two nations can find the solutions themselves due to constructive dialog. During the years of the previous government perhaps there were intensive Turkish-Armenian relations, however the Armenian side has never allowed the Turks to bargain neither the contents nor the process of the talks for political purposes. They’d say that the talks are secret. Even with all this, even with the sad result with which the current process of normalizing the Armenian-Turkish relations has ended, it is not at all devoid of positive elements. Turkey’s natural interest in the normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations on the one hand, and the linking of that normalization to expected shifts in the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, on the other, creates a certain impetus for pushing the process settling the Karabakh conflict forward. The fact that the circumstances have forced President Obama to assume moral responsibility is also a positive development, which obligates the country he governs to get more actively and impartially involved both in the process of normalizing the Armenian-Turkish relations and in the process of finding a resolution to the Karabakh conflict. The US president is an idealist in the best sense of the word. It is well known that although the world is usually governed by pragmatic and cynical people, civilization moves forward thanks to the occasionally appearing idealists. And by idealist I do not mean ideologues, but rather the rare statesmen, who have firm principles of morality, honor, and justice. Today in my opinion the main mistake of the Armenian side is the publicity of the talks with Turkey. And I mean both in the aspect of contents and process. During the recent years the Turkish diplomacy succeeded in providing more acceptable formulations for the international community of its rough policies. The refusal of the genocide issue is formulated as willingness to establish a commission of historians to study the issue. The territorial claim is formulated as establishment of diplomatic relations and through that recognition of each others’ territorial integrity. Today it is already an irrefutable fact that the establishment of the commission of historians and starting diplomatic relations with Armenia have become key objectives in the foreign policy agenda of Turkey and that there is a principal agreement around those issues. This was brought up to the world attention on April 22. As long as contents of the so called road map document is not open for the public the international community is going to consider the genocide issue doubtful and territorial claim on part of Armenia absent in conditions of establishment commission of historians and establishment of diplomatic relations. Moreover, even if the document has favorable formulations on behalf of Armenia Turkey will in future bargain this document as an agreement of Armenia upon recognizing the territorial integrity of Turkey and creation of a commission of historians. This document is going to be evidence for Turkey that Armenia consents upon the mentioned provisions. At present it is obvious that Armenia got involved in some process, which it doesn’t have control over and doesn’t have levers to influence on. Subsequently this document was branded a "roadmap," and some of its details were made public. Whatever its name, it seems that we are dealing with a serious intention to normalize the relations between the two states, especially when we take into account the impression that Turkey seems to have relinquished its unconstructive policy of making the resolution of the Karabakh conflict a precondition for the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. But there are two issues that are casting a dark shadow over that impression. The idea of a commission of Armenian and Turkish historians was obviously going to create certain difficulties for the Armenian side, so in the end it has succeeded in renaming the commission as intergovernmental. But that is only a way of pulling a veil over the issue and using a euphemism that intends to placate the Armenian people, because the intergovernmental commission is also going to have a unit of historians, which leaves the essence of the problem unchanged. The Turkish side also cannot ignore the pressure from the Azerbaijani public and its own opposition, and therefore it is going to have to return to its prior position. It is worth separately speaking about the date chosen for the statement. Regardless of whether the date was picked two days prior to the April 24 on purpose or by somebody’s recommendation it wasn’t a good idea and wasn’t acceptable. Unfortunately, today by judging the official statements of Turkey and Armenia it becomes clear that the chosen date was imposed by Turkey. Having done this Armenia conduced to the confirmation of the Turkish thesis, according to which the recognition of the genocide is the objective of the Diaspora and not Armenia. This has also increased the possibility of creation of a dangerous gap between the Diaspora and Armenia. By returning to the document it’s worth mentioning that the use of the term “road map” is also unclear. By this we unconsciously draw parallels with the Arabic-Israeli conflict, which has been one of the most entangled conflicts since 1948. Indeed the international community thinks that the process of resolution of the Armenian issue is also a long-lasting one and will require a sequence of various steps and documents to come to the end. But the Armenian-Turkish “bond” is quite clear – Turkey closed border with Armenia without justification and should open it without preconditions. The most concerning issue of the process is the parallel with the NKR conflict. Of course, the NKR conflict is not officially included in the agenda of mutual negotiations of Armenia and Turkey and this is quite natural, otherwise this precondition of Turkey would be evident and the negotiators would be meaningless right from the beginning. In past the NKR conflict wasn’t included in the talks either but the Turks didn’t have the opportunity to draw parallels between the two issues because there was no public process, which could have been linked with the NKR conflict. Today, however, the Armenian-Turkish issue has started to go in parallel with the NKR conflict, where Turkey and Azerbaijan have become almost equal role players in the process. Today, as a result of politics conducted by us, the Turks are enabled to courageously discuss the NKR conflict both in their bilateral relations and territorial matters. In the agenda of Turkey-Russia, Turkey-USA relations the NKR conflict is one of the most urgent issues. Such a thing has never been in past. Turkey now has the right to initiate a regional meeting with participation of Turkey, USA, Russia, Switzerland, Azerbaijan and Armenia, where according to the Turkish foreign affairs minister, the parties will be discussing not only regional matters, Armenian-Turkish relations but also the NKR conflict resolution. Today Turkey can act the way it wishes. It already has the public consent of Armenia around the basic bilateral points and now it is up to Turkey to desire to open the Turkish border by imposing the conditions, which it’d benefit from. Turkey has two options – either wait for a certain progress in the NKR conflict, such as return of certain territories on part of Armenia, which would suffice Azerbaijan and only after that open the border or Turkey will open the border only when it has guarantees from the US, Russia and Europe that the NKR conflict will be resolved on behalf of Azerbaijan. Everybody has the legal ground for that. I mean the memorandum signed in Moscow in November, which says that the NKR conflict should be resolved by decisions made by international instances. This fact has already been once used by the president of Russia Medvedev during the joint press conference of Medvedev and Aliyev in Moscow. Regardless of how complicated everything seems in diplomacy there is nothing impossible. Armenia needs to understand the complicity of the situation and take correct steps to fix the mistakes. First of all the point of opening the border should become a bilateral road. Of course, the border was closed by Turkey and Armenia had always stated that it is willing to start diplomatic relations without preconditions. But as Turkey has made the issue of opening the border a subject for bargaining, which is extremely dangerous for us the Armenian side should declare that after Turkey agrees to open the border Armenia should also give its consent about opening the border. By doing this Armenia will restore a very important lever in this yet incomplete process. Secondly, the Armenian side should set short deadlines for Turkey in regard of opening the border and threaten to deflect from the negotiation process. As the president of Armenia has already declared that this date is going to be no sooner than October it is necessary to clearly say that the Armenian president will not go to Turkey to view the soccer match if prior to that the border is not opened and the railroad doesn’t function. And besides that the Armenian side should as soon as possible publicize the contents of the road map in order to avoid tricky bargains around this issue. Moreover, it is important that the Armenian side clearly presents what the Armenian side gets from the formulation of each provision in the document. Only in this case will it be possible to prevent the bargaining of the contents and process of negotiations on part of Turkey.
