US, TURKEY FAULTED FOR FAILURE OF PROTOCOLS
asbarez
Friday, March 2nd, 2012
Armenia and Turkey sign the doomed Protocols in 2009
YEREVAN (RFE/RL)-The United States deserves its share of the blame
for the failure of recent years’ efforts to normalize Armenia’s
relations with Turkey, according to a renowned U.S. scholar who has
been actively involved in Turkish-Armenian dialogue in the past.
In an extensive monograph released by New York’s Columbia University
on Friday, David Phillips says that the administration of U.S.
President Barack Obama did not do enough to stop the Turkish government
linking parliamentary ratification of the 2009 Turkish-Armenian
normalization agreements with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He also
calls for a U.S. “policy review” on Armenia-Turkey that would consider
the possibility of officially recognizing the Armenian Gencoide.
David Phillips “The United States is also at fault. The Obama
administration missed an opportunity to reaffirm de-linkage of the
Protocols with negotiations over NK (Nagorno-Karabakh) when Obama
visited Turkey in April 2009,” Phillips writes. “U.S. officials did not
accurately assess the level of opposition to ratification in Turkey.”
“While U.S. influence was essential to signing of the Protocols, the
Obama administration bureaucratized the follow-up. It should have
appointed a ‘Special Envoy for Ratification of the Turkey-Armenia
Protocols.’ The Special Envoy could have played a useful role in
maintaining momentum, working the system in Washington, and keeping
the parties focused on next steps rather than pre-conditions,” he says.
The 130-page text contains a detailed description and analysis of
the failed normalization process as well as events leading up to
its effective launch by Switzerland in late 2007, several months
before Serzh Sarkisian took over as Armenia’s president. Its author
coordinated the work of the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission
(TARC), a U.S.-sponsored panel of retired diplomats and other public
figures, in 2001-2004.
The Swiss mediation, fully backed and facilitated by Washington,
culminated in the high-profile signing in Zurich in October 2009 of the
two protocols that commit Ankara and Yerevan to establishing diplomatic
relations and opening the Turkish-Armenian border. Turkey had closed
it at the height of the Armenian-Azerbaijani war for Karabakh, out
of solidarity with Azerbaijan.
Faced with an uproar from Azerbaijan, Ankara subsequently made clear
that Turkey’s parliament will not ratify the protocols until there
is decisive progress towards a resolution of the Karabakh conflict
acceptable to Baku. The Armenian side denounced that stance, arguing
that neither document makes any reference to Karabakh. Sarkisian
froze the process of Armenian protocol ratification in April 2010
and has since repeatedly threatened to scrap the Western-backed
deal altogether.
Phillips, who is now a program director at Columbia University’s
Institute for the Study of Human Rights, essentially agrees with
Yerevan on the issue. “The Protocols included no pre-conditions or
linkage to NK,” he writes. “[Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip]
Erdogan, however, established a pre-condition when he went to Baku
[in 2009] and stated that the Protocols would not be ratified unless
Azerbaijan’s sovereignty was restored.” Erdogan could have ignored
the vehement Azerbaijani protests had he been “truly committed”
to the Turkish-Armenian normalization, says Phillips.
Turkish officials have claimed all along that the protocols make
indirect and implicit references to Karabakh. An unnamed Turkish
Foreign Ministry official interviewed by Phillips is quoted in the
monograph as saying that there was a “gentleman’s agreement” between
Ankara and Yerevan that bilateral ties and the Karabakh dispute “will
be considered in parallel.” James Jeffrey, the former U.S. ambassador
to Turkey, likewise told Phillips that the two issues were not quite
delinked.
“According to Jeffrey, Obama did not discuss de-linkage with [President
Abdullah] Gul or Erdogan during his April [2009] trip.
Instead of affirming de-linkage, Obama was silent on the issue,” says
Phillips. He cites other U.S. diplomats as saying that Washington had a
“plan B” in case the Turks refused to unconditionally implement the
protocols. But, he adds, “no fallback plan was apparent other than
convincing Sarkisian to suspend rather than withdraw his signature.”
Incidentally, Phillips called for stronger U.S. pressure on Ankara when
he visited Yerevan in February 2010. “Unless the Obama administration
presses the Turks at the highest level, the likelihood of the protocols
being ratified in Ankara will decrease,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian
service (Azatutyun.am) at the time.
In his monograph, Phillips criticizes Armenia for agreeing to announce,
in a joint statement with Turkey, a “roadmap” to the normalization
on April 22, 2009, two days before the annual remembrance of the
Armenian genocide victims. An unnamed senior Armenian official is
quoted as confirming that this was done to make it easier for Obama
to backtrack on his campaign pledge to recognize the genocide once
elected president.
“Washington wanted us to announce the agreement before Genocide day so
President Obama wouldn’t have to mention genocide in his statement,”
the official told Phillips. “The Turks expected us to say ‘no,’
but we fooled them.”
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation pulled out of Sarkisian’s
coalition government just days after the Turkish-Armenian statement.
“The timing of the announcement galvanized opposition among a broad
cross-section of Armenian society, which believed that the Protocols
would be manipulated by Ankara to undermine genocide recognition,”
argues Phillips. He also faults Yerevan for agreeing to disclose the
Turkish-Armenian protocols only four months after they were secretly
finalized in April 2009.
Like many other pundits, Phillips believes that the protocols
can hardly be revived “in their present form.” Still, he says the
Turkish-Armenian border can be reopened even without their entry
into force. “Erdogan can make history by issuing an executive order
to open the border and normalize travel and trade as a step toward
diplomatic relations,” he says.
Phillips also makes a case for continued U.S. financing of direct
contacts between the civil societies and business communities of the
two estranged nations. He goes on to urge the Obama administration
to rethink its policy on Turkish-Armenian relations and consider
“innovative ideas” suggested by U.S. and other experts. “The
discussion could consider whether U.S. reaffirmation of its genocide
recognition [proclaimed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981] would
remove recognition as a bargaining chip, thereby creating conditions
more conducive to reconciliation,” he says.
The monograph reaffirms Phillips’s view that a landmark study
commissioned by the TARC from the New York-based International
Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) could serve as a blueprint for
ultimate Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. The ICTJ concluded in 2003
that the Armenian massacres “include all of the elements of the crime
of genocide” as defined by a 1948 United Nations convention. But it
also said that the Armenians can not use the convention for demanding
material or other compensation from Turkey.
“In any event, [genocide] recognition should not be an item for
negotiations,” concludes Phillips. “It should not be traded for
political concessions. Not only does negotiating recognition dishonor
past victims, but it also sends a signal to future perpetrators that
they can act with impunity when great powers find it politically
expedient.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Asbarez obtained the 130-page Phillips monograph on
Friday. Upon thorough review, it will present its perspective on
the report.