Clinton basks in Turkey-Armenia accord, praise from Nobel-winning boss
By: Matthew Lee, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
10 Oct 09
LONDON – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton basked in the
glow of praise from her Nobel laureate boss on Saturday after
spearheading successful efforts to salvage historic accords between
longtime bitter foes Turkey and Armenia.
President Barack Obama, who a day earlier was the surprise winner of
the Nobel Peace Prize, telephoned Clinton in Switzerland to
congratulate her on overcoming a last minute-hitch that threatened to
scuttle the Turkish-Armenian deals, a senior State Department official
said.
Clinton was headed to the airport in the Swiss city of Zurich following
an intense and frantic day of negotiations when she got the call from
Obama, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity
because the call was private.
"He was very excited, he felt like this was a big step forward and
wanted to check in," the official told reporters aboard Clinton’s plane
as she flew from Zurich to London, the second leg of a five-day tour of
Europe and Russia. "He called to congratulate her and the team."
"We had a good night in Zurich," Clinton said on the plane.
For several tense hours in overcast Zurich, however, that was anything
but a sure thing.
Having come merely to witness Saturday’s signing, Clinton instead
became embroiled in a dramatic turn of events that began when both
sides balked at signing agreements on establishing diplomatic relations
and opening their sealed border after a century of enmity.
Both had objections to language in statements the side wanted to read
after signing the deals, concerns that burst into the open just minutes
before the ceremony was to begin at the University of Zurich in the
shadow of Switzerland’s snowcapped Alps.
Clinton’s motorcade had just arrived at the venue when it abruptly
turned around and returned to the luxury hotel where she had met
separately earlier with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian.
There she spoke by phone from the sedan in the parking lot, three times
with the Armenians and four times with the Turks. At one point, a Swiss
police car, lights and siren blazing, brought a new draft of the
Turkish statement from the university to the hotel for review.
After nearly two hours, Clinton and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward
Nalbandian met in person at the hotel and drove back to the university
where negotiations continued in the presence of Swiss and European
mediators and the foreign ministers of Russia and France.
About an hour later, Clinton and the others brokered a compromise under
which no statements would be read at the ceremony.
She said she had repeatedly impressed on the Turks and the Armenians
that the agreements, known as protocols, that had been negotiated over
months were too important not to be signed now. The protocols, she
said, should speak for themselves without additional statements.
"We just kept making our points," she said, referring to herself and
the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, Philip Gordon. "This needed to be
done."
"It’s just what you sign up for," Clinton said of her role."When you
are trying to help people resolve long-standing problems between
themselves, it is a very challenging process."
To take effect the agreements must be ratified by the Turkish and
Armenian parliaments and face stiff opposition in both countries, which
have a particularly bloody history.
The contentious issue of whether the killing of up to 1.5 million
Armenians during the final days of the Ottoman Empire amounts to
genocide is only hinted at in the agreement as is the matter of the
disputed Armenian-occupied enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
Turks have close cultural and linguistic ties with Azerbaijan, which is
pressing Turkey for help in recovering its land. Turkey shut its border
with Armenia to protest Armenia’s 1993 invasion of the territory.