The Armenian-Turkish protocols signed a year ago may still “exist” and the process of reconciliation in the region is still possible. This is the opinion of a senior expert of Carnegie Center Thomas De Waal, who in his recent report has also adverted to the Armenian-Turkish relations, “soccer diplomacy,” the protocols, the issues of the reconciliation process and the prospects.
In the beginning of the report De Waal spoke about the motives of the process and submitted quite interesting comments. “For Turkey’s governing AK Party, holding out an olive branch to Armenia fit within the new “zero problems with neighbors” policy devised by its chief foreign policy strategist, Ahmet Davutoghlu, who is now Turkey’s foreign minister. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan also saw an opening. His legitimacy had been damaged by the violence that accompanied his election in February–March 2008, and his courageous decision to invite Gul to Yerevan opened a new credit line of international support. The Armenian and Turkish foreign ministers eventually signed two protocols on normalizing their relations at a ceremony in Zurich on October 10, 2009, supported by, among others, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Both sides gave themselves extra room to maneuver by requiring their parliaments to ratify the Zurich protocols. The documents stipulated that diplomatic relations must be established and the Armenia–Turkey border opened within two months of ratification,” writes De Waal. Thomas de Waal is sure that the Zurich Protocols opened up hopeful vistas for both countries. For Armenia they promised an end to regional isolation and long-term economic transformation. Even with the border closed, Turkey is Armenia’s fifth largest trading partner via Georgia, with an annual trade turnover of more than $200 million. “For the Turkish government, a successful rapprochement with Armenia holds out the prospect of engaging in the South Caucasus as a disinterested power. Successful normalization with Armenia would also be a major step toward addressing the gravest historical issue confronting Turks worldwide. Practically speaking, it would mean an end to the perpetual humiliation of foreign parliaments passing genocide resolutions condemning Turkey. For four decades, Ankara has expended time and resources resisting these measures, yet the parliaments of nineteen countries have passed resolutions on the 1915 massacres, with most designating the killings as genocide. “However, neither the Turkish nor Armenian government received a groundswell of domestic support for the Protocols, leaving both sides politically vulnerable on the issue. In Armenia, public opposition was not fierce, but there was little popular enthusiasm. Some Armenians expressed short-sighted concerns about the shops of Yerevan being flooded with cheap Turkish goods. Sargsyan faced much stronger criticism when he visited Lebanon, France, and the United States to sell the Protocols. Some critics within the Diaspora accused him of selling out Armenia’s heritage by promising to recognize the current border with Turkey, agreed upon with Moscow in 1921. Others denounced the pledge to establish a sub-commission “on the historical dimension to implement a dialogue with the aim to restore mutual confidence between the two nations,” arguing that it gave Turkey the opportunity to dispute an established genocide.” According to the author The Turkish government drew back from ratifying the Protocols as a result of domestic and Azerbaijani demands that progress was first needed on the unresolved Nagorno Karabakh conflict, even though Karabakh is not mentioned in the two documents. The approach of Armenian Genocide Day on April 24, 2010, raised tensions, and a meeting in Washington on April 12 between Prime Minister Erdogan and President Sargsyan failed to resolve differences. On April 22, Sargsyan suspended Armenian involvement in the process. He chose not to withdraw from it altogether and in his statement personally thanked President Gul for his work, but signaled that the Armenian side would no longer seek ratification of the Protocols, leaving the process in a deep freeze. De Wall thinks that Azerbaijan is a junior partner to Turkey, and relations between the mildly Islamist AKP and the strongly secular ruling elite in Baku are cool, but Azerbaijan has ways of influencing Turkish domestic politics and is also a major supplier of the country’s gas. “Turkish officials also displayed naivety about the Karabakh issue. They underestimated how fundamental the Karabakh question is to Armenians, believing that Yerevan could be prevailed upon to cede several of the occupied regions around Karabakh in exchange for the reopening of the Armenia–Turkey border. Yet there is almost no chance that Sargsyan, a Karabakh Armenian, would give up conquered territory for the sake of the Turkish border.” And why does Azerbaijan oppose the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement? Azerbaijan sees the Armenia–Turkey issue through its own fearful spectacles: It worries that opening the Armenia–Turkey border would reduce its leverage on Armenia and make Armenia more intransigent in the negotiations over Karabakh. Many Armenians probably share this view and were the border with Turkey to open, in the short term Armenians might seek to consolidate the status quo in and around Karabakh. Yet the longer-term dynamic is almost certain to work the other way: with its border to the West open, Armenia would begin to lose its siege mentality and eventually become more open to giving up occupied land in order to emerge from international isolation. “If the Armenia–Turkey border were to open, Azerbaijan’s “defeat” would therefore become symbolic only, and it would almost certainly stand to gain in the long term. Unfortunately, not enough effort was undertaken to make this argument to Azerbaijan, and President Ilham Aliev was not invited to the Washington nuclear summit in April alongside his Armenian and Turkish counterparts, giving the Azerbaijanis the impression that a deal was being done behind their backs. The stalling of Armenian–Turkish normalization also damaged the Karabakh peace process. For most of 2010, talks have been deadlocked. Several soldiers have died in a series of shooting incidents on the Line of Contact outside Karabakh. In August, Armenia agreed to an extension for the Russian military base in Armenia and stronger military cooperation with Russia in what looked to be a response to an increased Azerbaijani military build-up.” The author mentions that he Armenian government is also very fearful of any indication that Turkey is claiming a formal role for itself in the Karabakh peace process. Turkey should be sensitive to this. If Ankara is too vocal on the Karabakh issue, it runs the risk of only further alienating the Armenians and making them more intransigent. The Turks would be more helpful if they stated publicly that they have no pretensions to being a mediator, that they support the current Minsk Process, and that their definition of “progress” on Karabakh is a flexible one. The author mentions that one place that could emerge as a potential “win-win” area for all three countries is the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, which is separated from the rest of Azerbaijan by Armenian territory. In Soviet times, Nakhichevan was a major junction on the Moscow–Tehran railway. It relied on neighboring Armenia for gas, electricity, and railroad connections. As the Karabakh conflict escalated, Armenia cut off all supplies to Nakhichevan, leaving the exclave in a desperate condition. There have been several positive initiatives this year. An Armenian–Turkish youth orchestra has been formed. Armenian Genocide Dayon April 24 was commemorated by hundreds of Turks on Taksim Square, Istanbul’s busiest public space, with the full cooperation of the authorities. In the current climate of political deadlock, it is important for both sides to coordinate such initiatives so that they are understood and well received by the public and covered by the media. A dispute over the holding of the first religious service for 95 years at the medieval Armenian church of Akhtamar on Lake Van in eastern Anatolia on September 19 indicates just how difficult this can be. “There are a number of other potential initiatives that can be undertaken in spite of a closed border. An important constituency that should not be ignored is Istanbul’s small population of over 50,000 Armenians with Turkish citizenship who still feel marginalized and are hardly noticed in either country, but who are an important bridge between the two cultures,” he claims. Another group, Armenian citizens traveling to Turkey and often working illegally there, also need more protection and would benefit from the provision of consular services by a third country. Other possible steps in the report include: 1. A limited opening of a medieval Armenian city of Ani. This would allow Armenian tourists to visit the ancient site; 2. A Turkish government initiative to invite Diaspora Armenians to visit the ancient Armenian heritage sites of Anatolia; 3. A Turkish initiative to fully open and digitize the Ottoman archives containing the official Ottoman records of the events of 1915 to 1921; 4. The dismantling of the memorial in Istanbul to Talat Pasha; 5. The opening of a Turkish Airlines route between Istanbul and Yerevan. De Waal mentions that the United States can play a leading role in helping bridge the Armenian–Turkish divide. However, it is hobbled by what could be called the “April 24 question,” the issue of how to describe the 1915 tragedy while honoring both the large Armenian–American community and a strategic relationship with Turkey. Nevertheless, the analyst reminds that in 2015 the 100th anniversary of the genocide will be commemorated and if the problem is resolved prior to that then the parties will only benefit from that.