FORWARD TO THE PAST: RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND ARMENIA’S FAITH
By Raffi K. Hovannisian
Lragir
12:08:28 – 17/10/2008
The recent race of strategic realignments reflects a real crisis in
the world order and risks a dangerous recurrence of history. Suffice
the testimony of nearly all global and regional actors, which have
quickly shifted their gears and ushered in a new cycle of reassessment
of interests and, to that end, a diversification of policy priorities
and political partnerships.
It matters little whether this geopolitical scramble was directly
triggered by the Russian-Georgian conflagration and the derivative
collapse of standing paradigms for the Caucasus, or whether it
crowned latently simmering scenarios in the halls of international
power. The fact is that the great game–for strategic resources,
control over communications and routes of transit, and long-term
leverage–is on again with renewed vigor, self-serving partisanship,
and duplicitous entanglement.
One of the signals of this unbrave new world is the apparent reciprocal
rediscovery of Russia and Turkey. Whatever its motivations and
manifestations, Turkey’s play behind the back of its transatlantic
bulwark and Russia’s dealings at the expense of its "strategic ally"
raise the specter of history’s return, recalling the days more
than 85 years ago when Bolshevik Russia and Nationalist Turkey,
not contenting themselves with the legacy of the great Genocide and
National Dispossession of 1915, partitioned the Armenian homeland in
Molotov-Ribbentrop fashion and to its fatal future detriment.
Mountainous Karabagh, or Artsakh in Armenian, was one of the
territorial victims of this 1921 plot of the pariahs, as it was placed
under Soviet Azerbaijani suzerainty together with Nakhichevan. The
latter province of the historical Armenian patrimony was subsequently
cleansed of its Armenian plurality and even of its Armenian cultural
heritage, the most contemporary evidence of which was the Azerbaijani
Republic’s (a Council of Europe member-state) total, Taliban-style
annihilation in December 2005 of the medieval cemetery and thousands
of Armenian cross-stones at Jugha.
Mountainous Karabagh, by way of exception, was able to turn the tide
on a past of genocide, dispossession, occupation and partition, as
it defended its identity, integrity, and territory against foreign
aggression and in 1991 declared its liberty, decolonization, and
sovereignty–long before Kosovo, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia became
current–in compliance with the Montevideo standards of conventional
international law and with the controlling domestic legislation of
the Soviet Union.
Subsequent international practice on the recognition of Kosovo,
and later of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, demonstrates that in this
world there exists no real rule of law–applied evenly across the
board–but rather th e rule of vital interests that are conveniently
couched under the selectively-interpreted guise of international legal
principles of choice and of exclusivist distinctions of fact which,
in fact, make no difference.
It’s time to face the farce.
That goes for Moscow and Ankara too. Judging from the contemporary
pronouncements of their high-level officials, they still don’t get it.
And if they are driven by need for a strategic new compact, then
at least their partners on the world stage should reshift their
gears and calculate their policy alternatives accordingly. Iran, the
United States and its European allies might find here an objective
intersection of their concerns.
Russia and Turkey must never again find unity of purpose at the expense
of Armenia and the Armenian people. The track record of genocide,
exile, death camps and gulags is enough for all of history.
These two important countries, as partners both real and potential,
must respect the Armenian nation’s tragic history, its sovereign
integrity and modern regional role, and Mountainous Karabagh’s
lawfully-gained freedom and independence.
Football diplomacy is fine, but Turkey can assume the desired new
level of global leadership and local legitimacy only by dealing with
Armenia from a "platform" of good faith and reconciliation through
truth; lifting its illegal blockade of the Republic and opening
the frontier which it uni laterally closed, instead of using it
as a bargaining tool; establishing diplomatic relations without
preconditions and working through that relationship to build mutual
confidence and give resolution to the many watershed issues dividing
the two neighbors; accepting and atoning, in the brilliant example
of postwar Germany, for the first genocide of the 20th century and
the national dispossession that attended it; committing to rebuild,
restore, and then celebrate the Armenian national heritage from Mt.
Ararat and the medieval capital city of Ani to the vast array of
churches, monasteries, schools, academies, fortresses, and other
cultural treasures of the ancestral Armenian homelands; initiating and
bringing to fruition a comprehensive program to guarantee the right
of secure voluntary return for the progeny and descendants of the
dispossessed to their places and properties of provenance; providing
full civil, human, and religious rights to the Armenian community of
Turkey, including completely doing away with the infamous Article 301
which has served for so long as an instrument of fear, suppression, and
even death with regard to those courageous citizens of good conscience
who dare to proclaim the historical fact of genocide; and finally
exercising greater circumspection in voicing incongruous and unfounded
allegations of "occupation" in the context of Mountainous Karabagh’s
David-and-Goliath struggle for life and justice, lest someone remind
it about more appropriate and more proximate applications of that term.
As for Russia, true strategic allies consult honestly with each other
and coordinate their policies pursuant to their common interests; they
do not address one another by negotiating adverse protocols with third
parties at each other’s back, they do not posture against each other
in public or in private, and they do not try to intimidate, arm-twist,
or otherwise pressure each other via the press clubs and newspapers
of the world. Russia as well must deal with Armenia in good faith,
recognizing the full depth and breadth of its national sovereignty
and the horizontal nature of their post-Soviet rapport, its right to
seek and realize a balanced, robust, and integral foreign policy, as
well as the non-negotiability–for any reason, including the sourcing
and supervision of Azerbaijani oil–of Mountainous Karabagh’s liberty,
security, and self-determination.
Official Yerevan, of course, must also step up to undertake its share
of responsibility for creating a region of peace and shared stability,
mutual respect and open borders, domestic democracy and international
cooperation.
An ancient civilization with a new state, Armenia’s national interests
in the new era can best be served by achieving in short order a
republic run by the rule of law and due process, an abiding respect
for fundamental freedoms, good governance, and fair election s. These,
sadly, have not been the case to date.
Armenia requires the real deal, and forthwith. But history as witness,
it can and will no longer play the fool…or the victim.