A NEW ROLE FOR TURKEY
By Stephen Kinzer
Boston Globe
October 15, 2009
REACHING LAST weekend’s diplomatic breakthrough between Turkey and
Armenia was not easy. It took six weeks of secret talks in Switzerland,
seven last-minute phone calls from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton to the two countries’ foreign ministers, and a wild ride in a
Zurich police car, lights flashing and siren shrieking, for a Turkish
diplomat carrying a revised draft of the accord.
This breakthrough could also be said to have taken 16 years, the
length of time the Turkey-Armenia border has been shut, or 94 years,
the time that has passed since Ottoman Turkish forces slaughtered
hundreds of thousands of Armenians in what is now eastern Turkey.
In the end, pragmatism prevailed over emotion. Armenia is a
poor, landlocked country that desperately needs an outlet to the
world. Turkey is a booming regional power, but suffers from its
refusal to acknowledge the massacres of 1915. With this accord, each
side helps solve the other’s problem. The border is to be reopened
and diplomatic relations restored, giving Armenia a chance to rejoin
the world. Questions about what happened in 1915 – was it genocide? –
will be submitted to historians for "impartial scientific examination."
The most bizarre aspect of this process was the effort by Armenians
in France and the United States to derail it. Earlier this month
in Paris, President Serge Sarkisian of Armenia was met by shouts
of "Traitor!" and had to be protected by riot police. The potent
Armenian-American lobby also rallied against the accord.
If President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran proposed that impartial
historians examine the question of whether the Holocaust actually
happened, most Jews would presumably accept happily. The failed
rebellion by Armenians in the diaspora suggests that some are trapped
by the past; their cousins back home, meanwhile, seek a better future.
"There is no alternative to the establishment of relations with Turkey
without any precondit an said as the new accord was signed. "It is
the dictate of the time."
Both parliaments must ratify the accord. There will be disagreements
over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, which Armenia occupies but
which the rest of the world considers part of Azerbaijan, Turkey’s
ally. Nonetheless, both countries seem resolved to thaw this
long-frozen conflict. They will probably do whatever necessary to
overcome remaining obstacles.
The accord will allow trade between the two countries to resume. It
will also make it easier for Armenians to visit magnificent monuments
from their past that lie within modern-day Turkey. Beyond that,
it has far-reaching geopolitical importance.
For nearly all of its 86 years as a state, Turkey has kept a low
profile in the world. Those days are over. Now Turkey is reaching
for a highly ambitious regional role as a conciliator and peacemaker.
When Turkish officials land in bitterly divided countries like
Lebanon or Afghanistan or Pakistan, every faction is eager to talk
to them. No country’s diplomats are as welcome in both Tehran and
Jerusalem, Moscow and Tblisi, Damascus and Cairo. As a Muslim country
intimately familiar with the region around it, Turkey can go places,
engage partners, and make deals that the United States cannot.
This new Turkish role holds tantalizing potential. Before Turkey
can play it fully, though, it must put its own house in order. That
is one reason its leaders were so eager to resolve their country’s
dispute with Armenia.
Turkey has one remaining international problem to resolve: Cyprus. Then
it must solidify its democracy at home. That means lifting restrictions
on free speech and fully respecting minority rights not just those
of Kurds, whose culture has been brutalized by decades of repression,
but also those of Christians, non-mainstream Muslims, and unbelievers.
Under other circumstances, Egypt, Pakistan, or Iran might have
emerged to lead the Islamic world. Their societies, however, are weak,
fragmented, and decomposing. Indonesia is a more ership and is far
from the center of Muslim crises. That leaves Turkey. It is trying to
seize this role. Making peace with Armenia was an important step. More
are likely to come soon.
Stephen Kinzer is the author of "Overthrow: America’s Century of
Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq."