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14:17 04/09/2009 » Comments

Armenia Turkey Rapprochement Opportunity, Not Normalization

On August 31, The federal department of the Swiss Confederation as well as the ministries of foreign affairs of Armenia and Turkey circulated a statement informing that in the process of Swiss-mediated negotiations Armenia and Turkey agreed to launch internal political dialogue round regulation of bilateral relations. Moreover, two memoranda – “On establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries” and “On development of bilateral relations” – signed earlier lay in the fundamentals of the consultations.

During his September 1st meeting with the Armenian diplomats, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, who many times previously had voiced his view on the agreements with Ankara, has already spoken of the fact that the protocols “reflect the completeness of the agreements reached by this date”.

The second protocol provides for the establishment of diplomatic relations and exchange of diplomatic representations based on the Vienna conventions of 1961. The first document, which, according to the agreement, will come into effect simultaneously with the second one, envisages opening of the Armenian-Turkish border, conduct of political consultations between the two countries on various spheres of life and, to fulfill the objective, creation of an intergovernmental commission, which will include sub-commissions with various functions.

According to the joint statement of the two foreign ministries, a six-week timeframe is set for the internal political consultations round the mentioned issues, after which the protocols will be signed and submitted to the corresponding parliaments for ratification.

New opportunity for Armenia-Turkey regulation

In his speech President Sargsyan stated that “Armenia brought closer the possibility of regulation of Armenian-Turkish relations”. To understand these words is almost impossible without being acquainted with the background of the issue.

Since the collapse of USSR the newly independent Armenia has not established diplomatic relations with Turkey for around two decades. In parallel with that, Ankara, giving in to the demands of Azerbaijan, closed its common border with Armenia arguing for the fact of non-settled Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Armenia, that supports the self-determination rights of Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, does not yield to the Ankara and Baku jointed blockade and, in a decade’s time, both Turkey and Armenia clearly see that the lack of diplomatic relations brings losses more than provides achievements.

President-elect Serzh Sargsyan undertook the initiative of overcoming the deadlock of the situation. Taking the opportunity of conduction of official soccer match between the national teams of Armenia and Turkey in September 2008, earlier in June, Serzh Sargsyan proposed his Turkish counterpart to visit Armenia to watch the match together. Turkish President Abdullah Gul accepted the invitation, and with the last year’s Sargsyan-Gul meeting a new process launched which in the diplomatic circles was named as “soccer diplomacy”.

The process, which envisaged intensive Armenian-Turkish dialogue with Swiss mediation, was predominantly conducted behind closed doors thus mostly preventing the two societies from awareness of the process and content of the discussions. The silence was broken this April, when the sides made a joint statement on adoption of the “road-map” of regulation of the bilateral relationship. Later, though, the Armenian-Turkish consultations entered a stage of relative silence while various international observers and officials recorded a process slowdown.

Step-back by Ankara

The process slowdown, or, better to say, its total freeze, brought to public assessments made by a number of officials that were probably trying to return the sides to the constructive course. One of the brightest examples of such assessments is US State Department coordinating official Matthew Bryza’s statement made in June, this year that Turkey is taking a step back in the regulation process. The statement was rigid and fully lumped the blame of the dialogue failure at Ankara.

From the very beginning Washington stated of its support to the Armenian-Turkish regulation process. USA was not alone in the issue and Europe, Russia and almost all the international community expressed their readiness to support the process. The only country which was evidently against the process was Azerbaijan – the neighbor of Armenia and Turkey. Within the current year, Baku has stated many times that any decision bringing to improvement of the Armenian-Turkish relations without prior settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh issue will be regarded by them as trampling their national interests.

Furthermore, although Armenia had stated the negotiates with Turkey on “regulation of relationship without preconditions” principle and Washington and others interested in the process had openly supported the approach, Turkey, at least seemingly, yielded to Azerbaijani blackmailing demands. Few days after signing of the “road map” Prime Minister Erdogan stated that Armenian-Turkish regulation is impossible without the settlement of Karabakh issue. Later, he repeated his statement many times, including in Baku. Turkish behavior was a surprise for the international community. Naturally, thus Turkey does not display constructivity. Moreover, it wrecks the process.

The situation was not simple and there was a need to specify the Turkish approachment once more. To do so, taking the opportunity of “Eastern partnership” summit in Prague Serzh Sargsyan met with Abdullah Gul again. After the talk, Armenian President was quite laconic, “we agreed to respect our arrangements” (then, the content of the Armenian – Turkish negotiations was not publicized). Taking into account the possible oral guarantees by Abdullah Gul, Armenian President Serge Sargsyan made a statement mentioning that he would accept the invitation of the reciprocal visit to Turkey only if the existing arrangements were fulfilled.

Nevertheless, the statement was followed by the Turkish elite’s contradictory position – on the other hand Erdogan’s pro-Azerbaijani and anti-Armenian statements and on the other, Gul’s silence – kept the experts in ambiguity. As time passed, no ways out of impasse were seen. At least till the moment when the points agreed were uncovered and it became clear that the process continues.


Now - possibility, not regulation

Today it is clear that the Armenian-Turkish regulation process has passed on the next stage. It is also clear that the issue of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, to spite the Azerbaijani governmental wishes, has nothing to do with this process. Therefore a question arises as to what was the Prime Minister Erdogan after, when he was making statements far from reality. This question cannot but bother all those interested in the Armenian-Turkish relations.

As President Sargsyan noted, the existing statement is so far “bringing closer the possibility of the regulation”, thus not implying the regulation itself. That is to say, in absence of full regulation, there is a risk that Turkey may undertake step back attempts supported by Erdogan or other officials.

In practice, however, it is not very likely to happen. The documents around which the agreement has to take place have already been published today. Despite certain troubling questions that arise in Yerevan, there is no principle point that can make it impossible to accept the documents published the other day.

Not everything is simple on the Turkish side. Ankara is already troubled that the publicity of the process can give the government a possibility to deviate from making decisions in case of necessity, thus revealing a possible contradiction between the nationalist, Islamist and military powers having traditional influence in the Turkish society.

It is hard to give a final assessment to the reaction in the Turkish society and the parliament that will follow the two documents proposing the Turkish-Armenian regulation. However, it is clear that Ankara is already facing serious dilemma. A risk exists that, burying the process under this or that group’s interests, Turkey will have to admit that the very existence of this group proves the fact of that country’s being far from European values.


Translated by Sara Margaryan

Source: Panorama.am

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