Armenia-Turkey protocols signed while critics claim betrayal
21.10.2009 From Yerevan, Onnik Krikorian
The reactions in Armenia to the signing of the protocols with Turkey.
The political scenario, the public debate. A survivor of the 1915
genocide speaks out
After months of secret negotiations, the announcement of two historic
protocols to first establish and then normalize relations between
Armenia and Turkey were finally signed on 10 October. If ratified by the
parliaments of both countries, the border – closed by Turkey in 1993 in
support of Azerbaijan during the war with Armenia over the disputed
territory of Nagorno Karabakh – could be opened within two months.
Predictably, despite the promised benefits of economic development and
stability in an otherwise troubled and highly volatile region,
nationalist and other political forces in Armenia as well as its
Diaspora, Azerbaijan and Turkey are up in arms against such a move.
Yet, despite initial concerns about the possibility of large scale
protests against the agreement in Armenia, and not least following last
year’s highly controversial presidential election, there has so far been
little visible opposition since the protocols were announced in August.
Indeed, the main nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation —
Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) has even called off its round-the-clock strike
held outside the two main government buildings on Yerevan’s central
Republic Square. It did so the day before the historic agreement after
barely managing to rally more than 10,000 people over an issue
considered central not only to local ethnic identity, but also to its
own ideology.
Moreover, a second demonstration held on Friday in direct response to
Wednesday’s football match between Armenia and Turkey was even less
successful. Key members of the party might say that opposition to the
protocols will eventually snowball, but only an estimated 1,500 people
turned out even though the protest was staged on a busy central Yerevan
street. Speaking to Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso and the Wall Street
Journal just an hour before the demonstration, Armenia’s foreign
minister, Eduard Nalbandyan, seemed confident and calm despite calls for
his resignation from a party that was until recently part of the ruling
government coalition. It resigned in April precisely because of this new
push to normalize relations.
Even so, the traditional extra-parliamentary led by Armenia’s first
president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, argues that the ARF-D cannot be taken
seriously until it sets its sights on removing the incumbent president,
Serge Sargsyan, from power. Armen Rustamyan, Dashnakstutyun’s head,
admitted that there are no such plans yet. "That’s an explicit demand.
That is not a resignation demand yet, but it could logically develop
into a resignation demand," he declared at Friday’s rally. The same line
is echoed by Giro Manoyan, head of the party’s Hay Tahd (Armenian Cause)
office, a body which considers recognition of the 1915 massacre of up to
1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide to be
non-negotiable.
The last remaining survivors of that tragedy would agree. Speaking at
her Yerevan apartment, 99-year-old Yelena Abrahamyan, for example, is
steadfast in her opposition to a border opening until Turkey apologizes.
She is also unlikely to be swayed by reassurances from the government
that the establishment of a historical commission as part of the
normalization process would not lead to eventual denial of what many
historians and countries already consider as the first genocide of the
20th Century. Activists and nationalists in Armenia and the Diaspora are
also opposed to the recognition of the existing border. They instead
believe that Turkey should make territorial reparations to Armenia even
if many more Turks and Kurds now inhabit the land.
Even so, it is difficult to accurately gauge the majority view held by
most Armenians and many suspect that those voicing their opposition to
the protocols face an uphill struggle. This is especially true for
Ter-Petrosyan’s extra-parliamentary Armenian National Congress (ANC),
which might be considered somewhat disingenuous if it tried too hard to
exploit the signing only for the sake of regime change. Nevertheless,
that hasn’t stopped the ANC from toughening its stance in a statement
last week condemning the signing as `immoral and inadmissible.’ Despite
this, however, neither the ARF-D nor ANC appear willing to work together
to prevent the protocols from being ratified. Both, in fact, face a
serious dilemma.
"Those who have traditionally had pro-government positions but are known
for their nationalist views are in a difficult situation," wrote the
Hraparak newspaper about such dilemmas. "If they [ARF-D] welcome the
normalization of relations with Turkey, it will mean a betrayal of their
century-old stance. If they don’t welcome it, it will mean that they
betray Serzh Sargsyan. No less difficult is the plight of those who have
traditionally had an opposition stance but have always spoken of
development and democracy, good relations and open borders with
neighbors. […] So from any vantage point, the winner in this situation
is Serzh Sargsyan."
Another more moderate opposition paper spells out the situation even
more directly, and especially as it relates to what seems to be the
extra-parliamentary opposition’s hope of exploiting concerns about a
possibly parallel process to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
Nalbandyan, however, is adamant that the Armenia-Turkey protocols and a
peace deal with Azerbaijan remain separate processes although the
international community must surely hope that normalization of relations
with Ankara might at least assist resolution of a conflict on hold since
the 1994 ceasefire. Ironically, despite opposition claims, anti-Turkish
sentiment within Azerbaijan is reportedly on the rise because of the
protocols.
"Before, Serzh Sargsyan was with the party of war, while Levon
Ter-Petrosyan with the party of peace," Aravot editorialized, noting how
the conflict is often used for internal political purposes whatever the
situation. "Now they seem to have swapped roles. But in reality, the
real supporter of peace is he who takes into account the Karabakh
people’s opinion and the biggest pacifist is he who removes the Karabakh
issue from the agenda of the political struggle in Armenia. There are so
many things that can be said of the authorities that they did not have
to invent Karabakh’s sellout [by Serzh Sargsyan]."
Moreover, such accusations merely end up confusing people. One taxi
driver approached by Osservatorio, for example, said he was in favor of
open borders with Turkey, but then paused before continuing. `They say
the government is going to ignore the Genocide and sign a peace deal
with Azerbaijan, but I don’t know what to believe anymore. It’s all
politics at the end of the day and neither side will let me decide
anything.’ More confusingly, while one senior activist in
Ter-Petrosyan’s HIMA! youth movement has been using Facebook to turn
others against the agreement, he instead declined an interview with the
BBC on the grounds that he actually supported the protocols.
For now, therefore, with society divided and also disorientated, neither
Ter-Petrosyan’s extra-parliamentary opposition nor the ARF-D appears
strong enough to prevent the Armenia-Turkey protocols from being
ratified by the Armenian National Assembly. Instead all eyes are on
Turkey, which should present the protocols to parliament on 21 October.
In Armenia, the protocols will first have to be sent to the
Constitutional Court, then to the President’s Office, and only then on
to the National Assembly. One local diplomat speaking on the condition
of anonymity said a speedy ratification by the Turkish parliament would
theoretically see the same happen in Armenia.
But, however the much-touted football diplomacy plays out in the
political realm, other such as British-Armenian businessman Charles
Masraff remain hopeful. Although planned eight months earlier and
without any knowledge of the existence of the protocols, the marriage of
his [ethnic Armenian] son to a Turkish fiancée coincidentally occurred
on the same day that the agreements were signed in Switzerland. Last
week, on his return from the wedding in Turkey, Masraff held a special
party at his Yerevan cafe just two days after the Armenia-Turkey
football match to celebrate both events and to symbolically usher in
what many hope could be a new chapter in relations between the two
countries.
Time will tell if such optimism is warranted or not.
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