Author: Hovhannisian John

WHY WE ARE LOSING TURKEY
By Tony Blankley

RealClearPolitics, IL
10/why_we_are_losing_turkey.html
Oct 24 2007

With the steady decline of our selected ally Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s
ability to govern Pakistan and the growing alienation of the Turkish
people and government from their longtime ally the United States,
it is fair to say that from the Bosporus to the Himalayas, American
interests continue to decline, while American policy drifts. It is
ironic, if not mordant, to observe that in that zone, our policy in
Iraq stands out as holding more promise for success than most of the
other policies we are attempting. This week, let me consider why we
are losing Turkey.

The unfolding estrangement of the Turkish people (and derivatively,
the Turkish government) had been predicted and virtually unnoticed by
Washington until last week. This tragic event needs to be understood
thoroughly by the United States and the West because it goes to the
core of our theory of how to defeat radical Islam.

About three years ago, as then-editorial page editor of The Washington
Times, I hired a leading Turkish correspondent in Washington, Tulin
Daloglu. She was — and is — a superb student of Turkish culture
and politics, a secularist, a friend and admirer of America and a
Turkish patriot. I asked her to describe in her column each week
what the Turkish people and government were thinking, particularly
about American policies and actions. I thought more attention both
in Congress and the administration was needed on Turkish attitudes
and American-Turkish policy.

I was deeply concerned that Turkish attitudes were slipping dangerously
away from us, despite Turkey being our strongest Muslim ally in the
Middle East and the model for how Israel and the West could establish
a modus vivendi with a major Muslim country. Turkey has been both
taken for granted and ignored by Washington for years.

In Congress, the well-organized Greek- and Armenian-American
communities had a stronger voice than the Turkish-American community.

And, of course, for historic reasons, Greek-Americans and
Armenian-Americans usually oppose various Turkish policies. The
administration’s peevement with Turkey for not permitting our
4th Armored Division to enter Iraq through Turkey in 2003 led to a
failure to attend carefully to a decaying relationship with our great
ally. For about two years, the State Department barely communicated
in a significant way — on a policy basis — with Turkey.

To read Daloglu’s columns in The Washington Times these past years
is to read week by week the sad, objective chronicle of the loss of
a vital ally.

In the past week, the Turks’ reaction to the congressional Armenian
genocide resolution and their threat of serious military action
against our allies the Iraqi Kurds finally has — too late — gotten
Washington’s attention. But beyond the appalling mess we have if
Turkey invades Iraq (under the U.N. resolutions, we are, arguably,
obliged to defend the Kurds from the Turks — militarily), there is
a larger and still-ignored lesson to be learned by the meltdown in
support we have received from the Turkish people.

If there is one idea that Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and
liberals, share on how to fight the war on terror, it is that we need
to reach out to and win the hearts and minds of the moderate, modern,
peaceable, more secularist Muslims and empower them to defeat by both
persuasion and other methods the radical, violent fundamentalists in
their religion.

That would be a very, very good idea. But consider the Turkish
experience in the past six years. The Turks are the moderate, modern,
peaceable, more secularist Muslims. Moreover our countries have been
close allies for a half-century. And Turkey has had extensive friendly
commercial relations with Israel. They are Turks, not Arabs, and are
therefore less susceptible to the emotional plight of the West Bank
Arabs under Israeli occupation.

And yet we have lost the Turks almost as badly as we have lost the
angriest fundamentalist Arab Muslims. If we can’t keep a fair share
of their friendly attitude, how do we expect to win the much vaunted
and awaited hearts and minds campaign?

While I hardly have the answer to that question, one lesson can be
learned from the Turkish debacle (or near debacle): While we cozied
up to their arch threat — the Iraqi Kurds — we kept telling them
not to worry and to trust us. We did little to allay their fears that
the Iraqi Kurds were giving the PKK terrorists succor and sanctuary
in Iraq. We didn’t pressure our allies the Iraqi Kurds to pressure
the PKK. In the future, we are going to have to earn each ounce of
friendly relations based on what we actually do for the object of
our desire. Good intentions and common visions of the future are not
likely to be readily available.

FM REPRESENTATIVE: ARMENIAN MILITARY DOCTRINE PROVES OCCUPATION OF AZERBAIJANI TERRITORIES

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 24 2007

Armenia proves occupation of Azerbaijani territories with military
doctrine it will adopt, Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Khazar
Ibrahim commented on the clause "Armenia is the guarantee of security
of Nagorno Karabakh Republic" in military doctrine of Armenia to be
presented to Armenian President Robert Kocharyan in December, 2007,
APA reports.

Armenian Defense Minister Michael Arutunyan said that such clause is
reflected in the doctrine.

Khazar Ibrahim stated that Armenia exposes itself with this clause
reflected in the military doctrine.

"This shows that though Armenia tries to deceive international
community and states insistently that it did not occupy Azerbaijani
territories, it is not true. Sometimes statements of Yerevan senior
officials often sound such opinions, as if Armenia did not carry out
any aggression, there are no Armenian invaders in occupied territories,
and soldiers of Armenian Army did not serve in occupied Azerbaijani
territories. But doctrine project destructs such propagation of
Armenia and shows that Armenia is occupier and pursues aggressive
policy. This policy of Armenia impedes seriously peaceful solution
of the conflict," he said.

Khazar Ibrahim stated that Armenia should refrain from this policy
in a short time.

"On contrary negotiations will not give any result soon.

International community and co-chairs should pay attention to such
momentums, as well as clause on Nagorno Karabakh in military doctrine
of Armenia," he said.

MAHMUD AHMADINEJAD: ARMENIAN-IRANIAN RELATIONS EXCELLENT

DeFacto Agency
Oct 23 2007
Armenia

October 22 Presidents of Armenia and Iran Robert Kocharian and Mahmud
Ahmadinejad held a tete-a-tete meeting, after which Armenian-Iranian
talks continued in an expanded composition. A joint statement and a
number of memorandums were signed on the outcomes of the meeting.

Upon the completion of the meeting Armenian and Iranian Presidents
held a joint press conference, in the course of which they again
underscored the high level of bilateral relations between Armenia
and Iran and mentioned great potential for expanding and deepening
bilateral cooperation.

RA President Robert Kocharian stated that at the talks the
interlocutors had discussed a wide spectrum of bilateral relations;
special attention had been paid to economy, including the realization
of joint economic projects. Robert Kocharian noted the Armenian sector
of a highway connecting Armenia and Iran would be put into operation
October 26. The Presidents of Armenia and Iran also considered regional
issues. RA President informed his Iranian colleague of the course of
Karabakh conflict settlement process.

In his turn, President of Iran Mahmud Ahmadinejad estimated
Armenian-Iranian relations as excellent. In his words, relations
between Armenia and Iran are stable, dynamically developing and
friendly and are based on mutual respect. Iranian President underscored
there were no barriers for the relations’ development. He added the
issues referring to the sphere of transport, energy and bank system
had also been considered in the course of the meeting.

Touching upon regional issues, Mahmud Ahmadinejad noted Iranian
party was confident that all regional issues could be settled via
peace talks, and Iran is ready to promote the process. "Iranian party
attaches importance to relations with Armenia, including the sphere
of regional security", the President of Iran stated.

WHICH EVIL CAN CAUSE US MORE HARM?

Wilmington Morning Star, NC
NEWS/710220307/1002
Oct 22 2007

Are we focused on Iran, or not? The Bush administration says that
Iran is the greatest threat to our effort in Iraq, to the security of
Israel and to the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Indeed, the White House says
that Iran is the principal supporter of terrorism around the world.

And, oh yes, Iran is working to get a nuke.

So if all that’s true, why are we antagonizing the key countries we’d
need to help us against Iran? Why drive away Russia, China and Turkey?

Military strategists have a useful concept: "The Main Effort." It’s
a simple idea, based on common sense: Concentrate on one thing at a
time, first things first.

But of course, in the "fog of war," it’s easy to lose sight of the
main effort. And so the U.S. Army field manual, published in 2001,
lays out the concept in a whole chapter, just to make sure that
everyone gets it: "The main effort is the activity, unit or area that
commanders determine constitutes the most important task at that time."

The idea of "the main effort" applies to geopolitics, too.

In the ’40s, the Soviet Union was an evil empire, but it was less
evil – and certainly less of a threat to the United States – than
Nazi Germany. And so we concentrated our main effort on defeating
Hitler. And it worked.

Indeed, we tend to win our wars when we can surround and isolate our
foe – as with Grenada in the ’80s, or Serbia in the ’90s. By contrast,
we are much less successful when the enemy can be easily resupplied
and reinforced by its allies, as was the case in Korea in the ’50s,
and Vietnam in the ’60s and ’70s.

And so back to Iran. If we are to prevail, we will need to isolate
the country, cutting it off from potential aiders and abettors – most
obviously Russia and China, the two countries that provided help to
North Korea and North Vietnam.

So how’re we doing? Let’s start with Russia. Recently Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice was in Moscow, preaching democracy in the
middle of that autocracy, telling dissidents, "I think that there
is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin." She’s right,
of course. But Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is not our principal
enemy – he’s not the main effort.

And for his part, Putin has tricks up his sleeve. So he went to Tehran,
hobnobbing with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warning the
United States not to attack. And if the United States does attack
anyway, who will the Russians help?

Now to China. The Chinese are already buying Iranian oil. Surely,
China is nervous about possible American military action against Iran;
the Chinese don’t want to see the United States gaining still more
control over Middle Eastern oil supplies.

So what does the United States do? Does it reassure China that we’re
its friend? That we’re no threat to China, come what may with Iran?

No, we do just the opposite. On Tuesday, President Bush welcomed the
Dalai Lama – regarded by the Chinese government as a renegade and a
traitor – to the White House, and Wednesday, Congress awarded him a
special gold medal.

The official Chinese reaction was "fury." Now we can say that the Dalai
Lama is a jolly good fellow, but whose help do we want against Iran –
his? Or China’s?

As a smaller example, the House is working on a resolution condemning
Turkey’s genocide against the Armenians. Did the Turks do it, 90
years ago? Sure. But today, do we want Turkey’s help against Iran,
or not? It’s possible to argue that current American policy toward
Russia, China and Turkey is perfectly correct.

In which case, Iran is not really our main effort, after all. And the
United States is therefore unlikely to succeed in thwarting Iran’s
manifold ambitions.

James Pinkerton is a columnist for Newsday.

TURKISH MINISTER CALLS FOR US ACTION AGAINST KURDISH GUERRILLAS
By Al Pessin

Voice of America
Oct 21 2007

Turkey’s defense minister told U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates the
United States must take "tangible action" against Kurdish guerrillas
in Northern Iraq, whose latest attack killed at least 12 Turkish
soldiers, wounded 16 and left 10 missing. But the minister also
indicated unilateral Turkish action is not imminent. The men spoke
after a meeting in Kiev Sunday, and VOA’s Al Pessin reports from the
Ukrainian capital.

Turkey’s Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul (l) with his U.S. counterpart
Robert Gates, Kyiv, Ukraine, 21 Oct 2007 Turkish Defense Minister
Vecdi Gonul emerged from a half-hour meeting with Secretary Gates
saying Turkey wants U.S. action.

GONUL: "So far, we shared intelligence and they did some things, but we
would like to have something tangible, tangible. We are expecting this.

PESSIN: "Tangible military action, you mean?"

GONUL: "Any kind of tangible actions."

Minister Gonul said the Turkish people are suffering from the attacks
by group known as the PKK, and, in his words, "our boys are dying."

But at the same time, he indicated that while Turkish military planners
are working on a possible incursion into Iraq, authorized by parliament
last week, action is not imminent.

"Not urgently," said Vecdi Gonul. "They are planning. They are planning
to cross [the] border because, firstly, the intelligence is important,
getting enough information. And we [would] like to do these things
with the Americans."

Secretary Gates welcomed that approach.

"I am heartened that he seems to be implying a reluctance on their
part to act unilaterally, and I think that is a good thing," said
Robert Gates.

But the secretary would not say what action the United States is
prepared to take, short of more intelligence sharing.

"We have done a number of things in terms of cooperating with the
government of Turkey," he said. "I think that the first and foremost
challenge that we face, as is so often the case with terrorism,
is actionable intelligence. And I told him that lacking actionable
intelligence, for them to send a large force across the border without
any specific target was likely to lead to a lot of collateral damage
that nobody needed."

Secretary Gates says he and his Turkish counterpart also discussed the
pending U.S. congressional resolution that would label the Turkish
mass killing of Armenians early in the last century a ‘genocide.’ A
U.S. official says Secretary Gates told Minister Gonul a Turkish
attack inside Iraq would make it more likely the resolution might
pass, which the secretary believes would hurt U.S.-Turkish defense
cooperation, crucial to the U.S. effort in Iraq. Secretary Gates says
he also called on Turkey to pursue reconciliation with Armenia.

Secretary Gates said he repeated his view that a Turkish military
incursion into Iraq would be bad for all concerned.

"I told him that restraint should not be confused with weakness,
that a major cross-border operation would be contrary to Turkey’s
interests, as well as to our own and that of Iraq," said Secretary
Gates. "I told him that we should work together on this."

Secretary Gates and Minister Gonul met on the sidelines of a conference
of the Southeastern Europe Defense Ministers’ group.

Minister Gonul reports the Turkish Prime Minister will visit President
Bush in two weeks, but he would not promise Turkey will hold its
reaction to the latest Kurdish attacks until then, saying the decision
on when to act is a tactical matter.

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 19 2007

Peter Semneby: European Union supports peaceful solution to Nagorno
Karabakh conflict

[ 19 Oct 2007 12:04 ]

South Caucasus is a very important region for European Union (EU), EU
Special Representative for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby said, APA
reports.

He stated that he met with Azerbaijani President, Interior Minister
and representatives of civil societies yesterday.
Mr. Semneby underlined that mutual relations of South Caucasian
countries is also of great importance for EU.
`EU supports peaceful solution to all conflicts in South Caucasus, as
well as Nagorno Karabakh conflict,’ he said. /APA/

PRESSURE’S ON PELOSI TO CALL OFF HOUSE VOTE
By Richard Simon

Seattle Times, WA
Oct 18 2007

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came under increasing pressure
from members of her Democratic caucus Wednesday not to bring a
resolution officially recognizing the Armenian genocide to a vote.

The California Democrat, who had promised to bring the long-debated
resolution to the floor, sounded uncertain about its fate as support
has waned in the face of denunciations from Turkey and realizations
that the symbolic resolution could disrupt U.S. military operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Whether it will come up or not, or what
the action will be, remains to be seen," she said.

The Bush administration and the Turkish government – aided by
high-paid, well-connected lobbyists – have ratcheted up their campaign
against the measure, which calls on the president to "accurately
characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000
Armenians as genocide."

Now top Democrats are leaning on Pelosi. Rep. John Murtha of
Pennsylvania, an influential Democrat on military matters, has urged
Pelosi not to bring the resolution to the floor. He said party leaders
miscalculated support for the measure. If the resolution is brought to
a vote now, he said, it would fail, with between 55 and 60 Democrats
opposing it.

Murtha, a close Pelosi ally who is a leader in efforts to withdraw
U.S. forces from Iraq, said he was worried the resolution could
lead Turkey to deny use of its land, ports and air space to supply
American troops.

Separately, a bipartisan group of 49 House members, including such
committee chairmen as Ike Skelton, D-Mo., of the Armed Services
Committee and Rep. Silverstre Reyes, D-Texas, of the Intelligence
Committee, sent Pelosi a letter urging her not to schedule a vote.

The resolution’s supporters weren’t ready to concede defeat.

They want to have a vote when they are confident they will prevail.

Pelosi has left it to the sponsors, led by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.,
to gauge support.

"We want to win," Schiff said. "We always knew this was going to
be tough."

Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America,
said Pelosi is "pretty committed" to the resolution. "At the end of
the day, we’re confident that there will be a bipartisan majority"
supporting the measure, he said.

At least a dozen lawmakers have withdrawn as co-sponsors of the
resolution since it was approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee
last week, leaving the list of co-sponsors short of a majority of the
House. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., who pulled his name as a sponsor
Wednesday, said, "We need to hold the perpetrators of genocide
accountable, but this is not the right time for this resolution."

Bush again requested that Pelosi not bring the resolution to a vote.

"Congress has more important work to do than antagonizing a democratic
ally in the Muslim world, especially one that’s providing vital
support for our military every day," he said.

But the resolution’s supporters took Bush to task for being willing
to anger China by meeting the Dalai Lama in public Wednesday but
worrying about offending Turkey.

itics/2003958150_genovote18.html

OSCE MG CO-CHAIRS TO VISIT REGION OCTOBER 24-27

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.10.2007 17:23 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ October 17 Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian met in Paris with OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs, Bernard
Fassier (France), Matthew Bryza (U.S.) and Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia)
to discuss the details of the mediators’ October 24-27 visit to the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict region and issues to be raised at meetings
with Armenian and Azeri Presidents, the RA MFA press office said.

"DE FACTO ABKHAZ OFFICIALS PARTICIPATE IN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN YEREVAN"

The Messenger, Georgia
Oct 16 2007

Temur Mzhavia, chair of the Supreme Council of the Abkhaz
government-in-exile, is protesting the inclusion of representatives
of the de factoAbkhaz National Bank, GarantBank and Fininvestbank in
the fourth international banking conference in Yerevan, according to
Akhali Taoba.

Armenian officials often call on Georgia to contribute to positive
neighborly relations, although in this case Armenia is not setting
an example. Akhali Taoba writes.

"This can be proved by the fact that representatives of de facto Abkhaz
financial structures have been invited as official representatives of
an independent country. I believe this is an affront to Georgia’s state
interests and international juridical principles," Mzhavia remarked.

He also said he will write an official letter to the Armenian
Ambassador to Georgia, Grach Silvanian.

"We will not object to de facto administration officials participating
in similar events if they are presented as regional representatives
of Georgia," Mzhavia explained.

The conference began on October 10 and will finish on October 16.

Organizers include the Russian Banks Association, Armenian Banks
Union and International Exchange Association of Moscow.

ACKNOWLEDGING A PROBLEM: DOES RECOGNIZING AN ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING?
By Sergei Markedonov

Russia Profile, Russia
Oct 16 2007

This month, the "Armenian Issue" once again became one of the main
items on the international agenda. A new initiative by the United
States to acknowledge the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire has seriously complicated the situation in the Middle East
and Central Asia.

On Wednesday, Oct. 11, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the
U.S. House of Representatives passed resolution #106. This resolution
calls the massacre of Armenians by the Turks in 1915 a "genocide."

Steps towards similar resolutions have been made before, but this is
the first time such an initiative has had sizeable support within
the American political establishment. And even this decision was
not unanimous – 27 members of the committee voted for the resolution
while 21 members voted against it.

Nevertheless, in the middle of November this resolution will be
reviewed by Congress and the chances of it being passed are higher
than ever. Of the 435 members of the House of Representatives,
226 of them participated in writing the resolution. On the night of
Oct. 11, the Yerkir Media TV Company, which has close ties to the ARF
(the Armenian Revolutionary Federation) Dashnaktsutiun – the oldest
political party in Armenia – broadcast the "historic" meeting of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs.

According to Yerevan-based political scientist David Petrosyan,
"the discussion demonstrated that the majority of the committee
members are well acquainted with this subject; they presented a
number of substantial arguments in defense of their position. This is
the result of work by the most powerful and authoritative Armenian
lobbying organizations in the United States: the Armenian Assembly
of America and the Armenian National Committee of America." This
discussion also showed that, although the leaders of the Armenian
government talk about strategic relations with Russia, the "western
vector" of Armenian foreign policy is very important.

Mixed Loyalties

Today the Russian expert community generally accepts that Armenia
is Russia’s most reliable ally in the South Caucasus. The prospect
of Armenia reorientating toward the United States or the European
Union countries is either not considered at all or thought to be
insignificant. However, outside the cozy world of political cliches
and ritual declarations of the centuries-old "Russian-Armenian"
friendship, it is obvious that Armenia’s foreign policy is much
more complicated. Strictly speaking, Armenia does not need to tend
towards the West, because it was never an "anti-Western" country,
unlike Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko or Saparmurat Niyazov’s
Turkmenistan. The presence of a pro-Western element in the history
of post-Soviet Armenia has always been an important factor in the
republic’s development.

Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia stepped out on
to the international stage and learned, with the help of its large
diaspora, to appeal to global public opinion and help turn this opinion
in a pro-Armenian direction. On May 17, 1999, the U.S. Senate passed
a resolution condemning attacks on peaceful civilians and firing at
unarmed civilians in reaction to a "cleanup" operation carried out by
troops of the Soviet Union’s interior ministry in the Armenian villages
of Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1992, Congress passed Amendment 907 to the
Freedom Support Act, which prohibited direct U.S. government aid to
Azerbaijan. And although today many provisions of this amendment have
been significantly "corrected," it has not yet been cancelled. Azeri
President, Ilham Aliyev demanded the cancellation of Amendment 907
during his visit to Washington last year. Despite the fact that the oil
lobby stands for complete cancellation of the amendment, the Armenian
lobby (primarily the Armenian National Committee of America – ANCA)
has been successful in its counter-efforts. Over the last 15 years,
the United States has provided more than $1 billion of economic
assistance to Armenia. More than 1 million ethnic Armenians reside
in the United States.

In July 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to guarantee
that no import or export funds would be used to support the proposed
construction of a railroad connecting the Turkish city of Kars to
the Georgian cities of Akhalkalaki and Tbilisi and ending up in the
Azeri capital Baku, bypassing Armenia. House Resolution 5068 says that
"taxpayers’ money will not be used for a greater isolation of Armenia,
which still suffers from a double blockade imposed by Turkey and
Azerbaijan." Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-New York), one of the congressmen
who supported this document, stated: "these measures will promote
stability in the Southern Caucasus, while financial support for such
a railroad construction project would contradict the US’s interests."

Now in 2007, the time has come for the issue that is the most important
for the world’s Armenian community – recognizing the genocide of 1915
and including this issue in the U.S. foreign policy agenda. The vote on
Oct. 11 has already received a negative reaction from Turkey. Officials
in Ankara hinted that the vote could decrease the amount of aid Turkey
provides for U.S. troops in Iraq; as U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates has noted, 70 percent of all air cargo and 30 percent of fuel
for U.S. forces in Iraq transits through Turkey. Moreover, President
George W. Bush has also strongly recommended that Congress not pass
this resolution.

Although the president cannot strongarm the congressmen into voting
his way, both the congressmen and the senators must understand how
important the Turkish factor is for U.S. policy both in the Middle
East and in the Black Sea region, particularly since there is already
an ethnic group separating Ankara and Washington – the Kurds. The
United States supports a de facto Kurdish state in the territory
of Iraq while Ankara considers Iraqi Kurdistan a nest of terrorists
providing support to the Kurdish separatist movement inside Turkey.

Turkey has the second-largest army in NATO, which is well trained
and prepared. Its special services are capable of liquidating their
foes and also brilliantly discredited politically the longstanding
Kurd leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The Turkish dilemma

Yerevan is accusing Turkey of committing genocide against Armenians
during World War I, when about 1.5 million Armenians residing in the
territory of the Ottoman Empire were killed. Turkey, in its turn, does
not agree that the deaths were genocide, claiming that actually the
number of Armenians killed was much smaller and that these deaths
were a result of inter-ethnic conflict. Even the Armenians do not
agree on the future of Armenian-Turkish relations. The first leader
of the Armenian Republic, Levon-Ter Petrossian, was willing to give
up overemphasizing the tragedy in favor of prospects for future
positive relations with Turkey. Despite the fact Robert Kocharyan,
Armenia’s second president, has taken a much firmer stand toward its
western neighbor, Yerevan has given up any territorial claims against
Turkey. Even the Armenian diaspora is split on the genocide as well
as on territorial claims and reparations.

According to well-known Yerevan political scientist Tigran Martirosyan,
"the current demands of the Armenian people regarding Western Armenia
[part of modern Turkey] are based on the world community accepting the
statute ‘The Necessity of Liquidating the Consequences of Genocide’
as an international norm. And this, in its turn, is based on charters
of international tribunals, resolutions of the UN General Assembly
and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, which was adopted on Dec. 9, 1948 and came into force on
Jan. 12, 1951."

In the meanwhile, Turkish historians and politicians studying the
Armenian issue have their own serious counter-arguments. According to
Professor Halil Berktay, "this is a very serious issue. It is a mistake
made by the Turkish Republic. Turkey is taking too long to determine
its official political and legal position on the Ottoman Empire. Turkey
has not quite realized and has not completely adopted the fact that
it overthrew the Ottoman regime and established a modern republic
in its place. And this contains a very serious contradiction. The
republic cannot be held accountable for these events… The Turkish
Republic today can say one simple thing: the republic was founded
in 1923. The events in question took place in 1915. The army of the
Turkish Republic and its governmental institutions had nothing to
do with these events. The Turkish Republic is a new state. From the
legal point of view, it is not the legal successor of either the
Ottoman government or the Unity and Progress party government [the
Young Turks]." Today many Turkish researchers of Armenian-Turkish
relations argue for depoliticizing the problem of 1915, leaving it
for historians. However, many scientists, bureaucrats and politicians
in Turkey consider even statements like Berktay’s to be extremely
"liberal," and Taner Akcam, the first Turkish historian to use the
term "genocide" to characterize the 1915 tragedy, is now teaching at
the University of Michigan, far away from his historical homeland.

At first glance, Ankara could have easily chosen to say farewell to
the past. It would have been enough to simply develop the thesis of
"liberal" Turkish historians that there is no legal succession between
the Turkish Republic and the Ottoman Empire. Such a stance has been
one of the key ideological points of modern Turkey since the time of
the republic’s founder, Kemal Ataturk. Once such a declaration was
made, the Turkish government could have condemned the Ottomans and
their killing of Armenians. Moreover, Ankara could have accepted the
"pass" from Yerevan when it gave up its territorial claims to Western
Armenia, which today is under Turkish jurisdiction.

By accepting the 1915 Armenian genocide today, Ankara could have
closed the issue it forever.

However, acknowledging the Armenian genocide and saying farewell to
the past is not so simple. Kemalist Turkey, which denounces the legacy
of the Ottoman regime in many ways, still carries out the familiar
old foreign and internal policies. This is true for the conflict over
Cyprus, relations with Greece and Bulgaria, the policy in the territory
of the former Yugoslavia and the policy toward ethnic minorities in
addition to the problems with Armenia. Moreover, throughout the 20th
century, the Turkish Republic was able to strengthen its position
in the world by skillfully manipulating the conflicts between the
world’s great powers, which is why Armenia and the Armenian diaspora
has expressed alarm about Turkey’s possible entry into the European
Union. Turkey has used NATO resources completely to its advantage,
without worrying too much about making its actions comply with the
high standards of the organization.

Today Turkey has its own interests in the South Caucasus and can turn
the issue of acknowledging the genocide of Armenians into an item
up for negotiation. Recognizing the genocide could become part of
the negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh, since Azerbaijan is Turkey’s
strategic partner. It is quite possible that Ankara will suggest an
"exchange of acknowledgments" between Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On March 26, 1998, then-President Heydar Aliyev issued a Presidential
Decree "On the genocide of Azeris." March 31 was proclaimed as the
Day of Genocide of the Azeris. The decree included such declarations
as "the dismemberment of the Azerbaijani people," the "division
of historical lands" of the Azerbaijanis, and the "occupation"
of Azerbaijan after the Gyulistan (1813) and Turkmanchai (1828)
peace treaties, which ended two Russo-Persian wars. The historical
responsibility for the genocide of Azeris was laid upon the Russian
Empire, the Soviet Union, Armenia and the Armenian people. Thus, it is
also possible that in return for acknowledging the Armenian genocide
of 1915, Turkey will ask Armenia, with the help of pressure from the
United States, to acknowledge the "Azeri genocide." Only time will
tell whether Washington will be ready for such a turn. And not just
time, but also the situation around Iran, the dynamics in Iraq and
the continued upheaval in the wider Caucasus region.

Sergei Markedonov is the head of the Interethnic Relations Department
at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis in Moscow.

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