NO INCENTIVE FOR TURKEY, ARMENIA TO NORMALIZE RELATIONS
Al Monitor
May 3 2013
By: Cengiz Candar for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse Posted on May 3.
Hopes that Turkey could ever solve its almost intractable Kurdish issue
have never been as high as they were in the first quarter of 2013. If
this peace process can continue with all its ups and downs but without
rupture, it could that suggest that another perennial issue as old
as the Kurdish issue, the Armenian question, can also be tackled.
Of course, there is a fundamental difference. The Kurdish issue
directly concerns 15 million people living in Turkey as Turkish
citizens and more than 30 million other Kurds living in the region
and majority populations of tens of millions living in those countries.
The Armenian question is about the perishing of a national community
on the land they have been living for time immemorial. Today, the
question is more about its deep psychological scars rather than its
physical aspects.
For the Armenians, a large part of historical Armenia, what they call
Western Armenia, covers an substantial portion of today’s eastern
Turkey. It is not unusual for countries and lands to change names but
for the Armenians and Turkey, the issue is more than losing land but
the almost total annihilation of a nation on the land where they used
to live.
We are talking about the events of 1915, which the Armenians first
labeled “~TMetz Yeghern,” that is, “Great Disaster,” until the UN
adopted the 1948 Convention on Genocide. Turkish historiography called
it “tehcir,” that is, “relocation or deportation.”
“Tehcir” is defined as “relocation dictated by war conditions” and
sounds even more innocent than the English word “deportation.” To
avoid remembering it as a black page of history, a normal Turkish
citizen wasn’t even told about the “deportation of the Armenians.”
When the Armenians came out with 1915 genocide accusations, Turkey
tried to protect its national pride by using “deportation” instead of
“genocide.”
The word genocide entered Turkey’s political lexicon when in the 1970s
through the 1980s, an Armenian terror organization called ASALA began
hunting down and assassinating Turkish diplomats in all corners of
the world. That is why the word had unpleasant connotations from the
outset and to recognize 1915 as genocide was perceived as submitting
to terrorism.
The more Turkey democratized, globalized and opened up to outside
world, the more these perceptions began to change. Of course, the
end of the Cold War had a major effect. All of sudden, instead of
the Soviet Union, Turkey found Georgia, its ethnic relative, oil- and
gas-rich Azerbaijan and Armenia as its neighbors in southern Caucasia.
While for many years the Armenian issue based on the claims of genocide
was shouldered by Armenian Diaspora in many corners of the world,
but notably in the US, France, Lebanon and Argentine. Suddenly a
state representing the Armenian identity emerged next door to Turkey.
For the last half century, in Turkey the word diaspora, even without
its Armenian modifier, meant “Armenians who claim genocide with
anti-Turkish sentiments.” The country of Armenia came to represent
the political dimensions of the issue.
In the meanwhile, we have to remember that the assassination in
2007 of Turkey’s most influential and best known democratic figure,
Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, constituted a breaking point in
Turkey’s Armenian issue that heralded the emergence on the political
stage of the “Turkish Armenian” identity, even though they are but a
60,000-strong minority living only in Istanbul, down from 1.5 million
in 1915.
Since that time, an increasing number of Turks and Kurds of Turkey,
in solidarity with Armenians, began to discuss the Armenian issue
and to observe April 24 as Genocide Remembrance Day, first in the
center of Istanbul and then, this year, in many provincial capitals,
led by Diyarbakir.
Turkey faces a complex structure of Armenia-Diaspora-Turkey’s
Armenians. For the late Hrant Dink, normalization of relations between
Turkey and Armenia was a life mission. A year and half after his
assassination we came very close to his ideals.
When the qualifying rounds of the 2010 World Football Cup put Turkey
and Armenia in the same group, a possibility of “football diplomacy”
reminiscent of the “‘ping-pong diplomacy of the USA and China
appeared. The [resident of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, went to Yerevan
to watch the Armenian-Turkey game on Sept. 6, 2008. After the game,
the foundations of warm relations were laid in a reception given by
Armenian President Serge Sarkissian in the stadium grounds before Gul
left for the airport to return to Turkey. A year later, Sarkissian was
the guest of Abdullah Gul at the return Turkey-Armenia match in Bursa.
Thousands of Turks descended on Armenian capital, Yerevan, benefiting
from the improvement in the atmosphere between the two countries.
The warm climate between the two countries led to signing of the
Turkey- Armenian Protocols by two foreign ministers, Ahmet Davutoglu
and Edward Nalbandian, on Oct. 11, 2009, in Zurich in the presence of
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov and EU foreign affairs and security official Javier Solana.
These historical protocols stipulated: Exchange of ambassadors between
two countries to establish diplomatic ties, Opening of the closed
land border between Turkey and Armenia.
To normalize and develop relations, the parties undertook to refrain
from mentioning two preconditions: To develop their relations, Turkey
and Armenia will not demand steps in the Nagorno Karabakh issue,
For the same purpose, Armenia will not demand Turkey’s recognition of
“~Tgenocide” as a precondition.
There was opposition to normalization of Turkey-Armenian relations
both in and out of both countries. Azerbaijan felt that Turkey had
eliminated its bargaining cards against Armenia. Although the US
appeared to be satisfied with the development, it was nevertheless
asking Turkey and Armenia what would the Russian gains be from
Turkey-Armenian rapprochement.
Before long, the preconditions reappeared and eventually became the
prerequisites of normalization. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in
a speech at the Azerbaijan parliament in Baku to alleviate the concerns
of Azeris declared that there won’t be Turkey-Armenia normalization
if there is no progress at Karabakh.
Observers saw Erdogan’s upending with a single blow of what Gul was
trying to build as the Prime Ministers preference for the option of
Turkey becoming an energy hub given the oil and natural gas wealth
of Azerbaijan instead of normalizing with Armenia and pleasing the
US and the West.
Those in Turkey opposing warming up to Armenia, came up with the
observation that Armenia under strong Russia influence had no intention
of taking any steps neither in genocide or Karabakh questions anytime
in near future and used that argument to prove that Turkey was not
to blame for the in normalization.
Turkish officials saw that the Minsk Group set up within Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe [OSCE] had not moved at all.
In the group that included USA, Russia and France Turkish officials
found out that the US did not have much leverage over Karabakh and
the real leverage was in Russian hands. They also noted Russia had no
incentive to find a quick solution to Karabakh and to empower Turkey
in the Caucasia.
If Turkey cannot get Russia to move on Armenia question even when
Erdogan-Putin relations are at their best, it is not likely to get
anything more at a time when they are in opposing camps over Syria.
In Turkey there will be two elections in 2013, for one the president
and the other for local administrations and general elections in 2014.
No Turkish politician in the right mind can be expected to take any
steps of rapprochement with Armenia at the cost of upsetting Azerbaijan
and mobilizing the Azeri lobby in Turkey and Turkish nationalists.
Because of all these considerations, while many other issues are being
tackled, you don’t see any haste, any action to put normalization
with Armenia to the top of the agenda.
But 2015 will be the 100th anniversary of the genocide, and Armenian
mobilization in the international arena in 2015 will be a potential
irritant for Turkey. But, then, Turkey’s own domestic developments
and bringing in the Diaspora to share April 24 observances, also
means that genocide will no longer be something Turkey owes to Armenia.
In other words, the need for closure of the Genocide File is no longer
an incentive or sine qua non for normalization of Turkey-Armenia
relations.
No Turkey-Armenian normalization is detected in the horizon. And there
won’t be unless there are mutually enticing and strong incentives.
Cengiz Candar is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse.
A journalist since 1976, he is the author of seven books in the Turkish
language, mainly on Middle East issues, including the best-seller
Mesopotamia Express: A Journey in History.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/turkey-armenia-incentive-normalization.html