DO THE PROTOCOLS BRIDGE ANY DIVIDES?
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The Turkey-Armenia Agreement
In a BBC radio interview on Sunday Sequence last week, I was asked for
an assessment on the geopolitical as much as human impact of the recent
agreement between Turkey and Armenia, and whether the signing of the
two protocols will lead – at least on paper – to a normalisation of
relations between these two unfriendly neighbours or at least open
the common border that has been closed off unilaterally by Turkey
since 1993.
What could I tell the programme presenter that I had not already
incorporated into my Open Letter of 6th October to Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan? Were those issues not also adequately covered in the
open letters, statements, analyses and opinions of many organisations
and individuals alike? Had the Armenian National Committee of Canada,
for instance, not dissected in five key points the two protocols
and concluded that they were deeply flawed in nature? What about
the writings of Raffi K Hovannisian and Vartan Oskanian, two seasoned
politicians and former government ministers in Armenia? Had Hovannisian
not asserted in his Protocols and Preconditions of 12th October that
"in this millennial series of misfortunes", the Armenian nation had
never yet invited such destruction upon itself? Had Oskanian not
also concluded on 14th October that "normalisation of Armenia-Turkey
relations, as an idea even, has been discredited" and that it "has
thus begun with the capitulation of the Armenian side"?
But perhaps a most telling – and in its own right a most powerful
– articulation was the short but incisive 8th October open letter
to the Turkish and Armenian leaders by Professor William Schabas,
an Irish-Canadian law professor, and president of the International
Association of Genocide Scholars, who expressed the wariness of the
IAGS "of any call for allegedly impartial research into what are
clearly established historical facts" and added that "acknowledgement
of the Armenian Genocide must be the starting point of any ‘impartial
historical commission’ and not one of its possible conclusions".
In the final analysis, I believe this fragile agreement that was
shrouded in mystery till the eleventh hour is more a marriage of
convenience imposed upon two South Caucasian neighbours by outside
matchmakers than a real desire for reconciliation between them. It is
certainly not a case of Armenia and Turkey wishing to establish good –
in the classical sense of co-equal – neighbourly relations, but rather
one of geopolitical realities being dictated upon them. If the real
purpose of the exercise were to reach reconciliation, then the truth
should not have been shunned so maladroitly by both sides. Let me
take just three examples to mark the distinction between expediency,
reconciliation and truth in international relations. In the case of
the Jewish Holocaust, which is genocide by another name, did Germany
not recognise its heinous crimes and make good upon this chapter in
its history during WWII? After all, it did not create a historical
sub-commission to examine established facts, but rather recognised its
crimes and made reparations for them. And if I were to look further at
South Africa, with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission 1995, or
perhaps even closer to home in Northern Ireland with the Good Friday
/ Belfast Agreement 1998, where erstwhile historical enemies worked
together and admitted their mistakes, surely the paradox with the
latest Turkey-Armenia agreement becomes even more self-evident in both
its simplicity and duplicity. The simplicity is that the establishment
of diplomatic relations between any two countries would require a
mere – and familiar – template that is used universally and not two
protocols with preconditions, commissions or omissions! The duplicity,
on the other hand, is that such an agreement cannot be heralded as
reconciliation when it brazenly obfuscates the truth and strays quite
far from it. Indeed, by listening to President Sargsyan’s address last
week when he placed the protocols in the context of Armenian rights and
interests, not only did he fail to convince me with his arguments but
in fact succeeded to underline why Armenia in the person of its foreign
minister should not have signed the agreement as it stands today.
But the fact remains that those protocols have been signed in a rather
self-conscious ceremony in Zurich that housed a smiling Turkish foreign
minister, a less-than-smiling Armenian foreign minister, the clapping
presence of the American, French and Russian foreign ministers as
OSCE Minsk Group co-chair representatives, the EU High Representative
for Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Swiss host. Mind you,
Turkey had every right to be smiling, as it avoided a last-minute
glitch and deftly managed to pull off a political rabbit from its
Ottoman fez. What now remains to be seen is whether the respective
Turkish and Armenian parliaments will ratify this agreement in toto
since they do not enjoy the right to amend or alter it, whether the
border will eventually be opened so that Armenia acquires at long
last an access to the sea, and whether the putative economic gains
– a moot point for me actually – will filter down to the ordinary
and needy people in Armenia. After all, I would suggest that an open
border is at the very least as beneficial to Turkey as it is to Armenia
since the former can trade in the Armenian market with cheap Turkish
products, let alone invest in the country or even acquire Armenian
national assets.
But in the scroll of winners and losers from those two Turkey-Armenia
protocols, it is almost a non-sequitur to argue that Turkey has
largely neutralised Armenian efforts at lobbying for recognition of
the genocide, found a market for its goods and also appeared to be a
statesmanlike peace-builder which would earn it a few brownie points
with the EU just in case its accession hopes are revalidated later.
And while many people would also talk of the USA and the EU in terms of
win-win or win-lose situations, what still surprises me is the eerie
absence in the documents and commentaries coming out of politicians
and pundits to date of the fact that the Russian Federation is another
major benefactor of this agreement. This is why I would suggest that it
will have exercised ample "friendly pressure" upon its ally Armenia
to sign those two protocols. Following the Russian-Georgian war,
and the new geopolitical shifts in the whole region, this agreement
would not only facilitate its policies on oil and gas supplies and
the route of its pipelines, it would also strengthen its influence in
the region as well as wean oil-rich Azerbaijan just a tad away from
Turkey and into its sphere of influence – as has been manifested by
the successive visits to Baku by Russian political leaders.
Another crucial issue looming very much in the background of this
agreement is the conflict in Nagorny-Karabagh. Again, as I wrote
recently in my Open Letter, I remain quite convinced that Turkey will
now use its "gains" from those protocols as a trump card to counter
the "stalemate" in this conflict by coercing Armenia to settle with
Azerbaijan. In fact, there is already some talk in the political
corridors of the OSCE Minsk Group of a possible breakthrough between
Armenia and Azerbaijan over a framework agreement on basic principles
that was initially outlined in 2005. In fact, and in view of the
surprise element of the two protocols when the Diaspora was for all
intents and purposes ambushed by them without prior consultation,
there is now mounting concern that Armenia would again be pressured
to give up the occupied territories (which it should do eventually
anyway) in exchange for mere promises of security (which it should
certainly not accept on its own minus any concrete return). Yet, this
breakthrough looks rather premature to me, more so in view of the
increased frequency in armed skirmishes between both sides. However,
once the negotiations – and concomitant pressures – become more
critical over self-determination, or about an Armenian pullout or
even over the corridor linking Armenia to Nagorny-Karabagh, I hope
the Armenian politicians and their mandarins will be more prudent
when they discuss the final outcome than what they did with the two
protocols signed in Zurich last week.
But let me add a couple of correctives here. Many people today
are claiming that this agreement dealt a fatal blow to the issue
of recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and that countries from
the USA to Israel will no longer have to recognise it since the
Armenia government will be "implementing an impartial and scientific
examination" over its historical veracity. Much as there is a modicum
of truth in this postulation, I would nonetheless add that the
issue of recognition will not die away since it remains a Diasporan
priority that voters in the USA and elsewhere will continue to lobby
for and perhaps even at a higher pitch – irrespective of any political
protocols between Turkey and Armenia. So I would suggest that President
Obama has not been let off the hook, as Armenian-American voters and
their supporters will ensure that their demands remain audible. But
as a lawyer, let me play the devil’s advocate and refer to an idea
I was discussing earlier with the Armenian-British author George
Jerjian. Is it remotely possible that this provision in the protocol
is solely a smokescreen to help Turkey save face before "accepting"
the recommendations of the said commission that genocide occurred in
fact? Or is this too wild a theory even by Machiavellian standards?
In the final analysis, one regrettable collateral damage from those
protocols is that scores of ordinary Armenian men and women worldwide
who have been hardy supporters of normalisation with Turkey are now
being labelled extremists, loudmouths or nationalists simply because
they seek an agreement that is credible, equitable, mutually-beneficial
and sustainable rather than one that is based on indignity, injustice,
disequilibrium and non-sustainability. No amount of football matches in
Yerevan (present capital of Armenia) or Bursa (former capital of the
Ottoman Empire) could erase from the minds of countless peoples that
this agreement lacks adequate moral as much as political probity and
that its far-reaching and long-term ramifications are as unsettling
as they are unclear.
But how will we Armenians be spared the disturbing fallout of those
protocols when there is so much disappointment and some anger, and how
will we also ensure that the yawning gap between the Armenian Republic
and the Armenian Diaspora does not ricochet dangerously beyond control
and arrest our collective future hopes? Will we manage to bridge any
of the divides through public diplomacy and people-to-people contacts
to ensure real reconciliation?
Therein lies in my opinion the next existential challenge that
confronts us all, one that goes even beyond Mount Ararat and genocide,
and it should have perhaps been the real question from the BBC
presenter to me last Sunday.
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