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The stalling process of reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey threatens to make matters worse between the estranged countries and may have bitter ramifications for the turbulent region, according to The Los Angeles Times.
"This great truce is already in need of a rescue, and if it breaks down, we will end up in a worse place than where we started," the newspaper’s editorial said on Friday.
"Allowing these protocols to fail would unleash a destructive chain of events. An aggrieved U.S. Congress might press ahead with a genocide resolution [a bill on the alleged World War I-era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire], a move that would provoke a strong anti-American backlash in Turkey. The already faltering peace process over the [Armenia-Azerbaijan] Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict -- the major issue impeding peaceful development in the South Caucasus -- would be hit hard, and calls for war could resume in Azerbaijan."
The article, "Armenia and Turkey: The truce in need of a rescue", written by Henri Barkey, a professor of international relations at Lehigh University, and Thomas de Waal, a senior associate on the Caucasus at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says further that the Armenian opposition is discontent with the provisions of the two reconciliation protocols which Ankara and Yerevan signed on October 10, 2009 in Switzerland.
"A rapprochement would be good news for Armenia, which would see its main border to the West opened and an end to years of regional isolation. Yet Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian also faces unexpectedly strong opposition. In the diaspora, there are loud complaints that the provisions to confirm the existing Armenian-Turkish border and set up a joint historians' commission on the ‘massacres’ relieve pressure on Ankara to own up to the Armenian ‘genocide.’"
The story notes, however, that the world would never tolerate a redrawing of Turkey's borders.
"Even Josef Stalin failed to accomplish that in the flush of victory over the Nazis in 1945 -- and the Turkish government is unlikely to recognize the Armenian genocide with a gun pressed to its head," the LA Times said, claiming that Turkey's own growing internal debate about the 1915 developments "is a much surer road to their eventual acknowledgment than political lobbying from abroad."
Armenia and Turkey have been at odds for decades and maintain no diplomatic ties. The border between the two countries has been closed since 1993 due to Armenia’s policy of occupation against Azerbaijan, Turkey’s ally, and past genocide claims. The Zurich protocols signed by the Armenian and Turkish governments, in a bid to normalize bilateral relations marred by decades of hostility, seek to establish diplomatic relations and reopen the two countries’ shared border. The documents, which still require parliamentary approval, also envision setting up a commission of historians to research the alleged genocide of Armenians. The United States, with its large Armenian American community and strategic alliance with Turkey, threw its weight behind the deal.
"When the accord was signed last year, the Turks hoped that there would be a breakthrough in the peace talks over the conflict, but that hope is fading," the story said. It also recalled that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had made it clear that the protocols will not be implemented until Armenia withdraws from occupied Azerbaijani territory.
The article also claims that it would be "political suicide" for Armenian President Sarkisian to "unilaterally withdraw" from occupied Azerbaijani land.
"Yet it is not unreasonable for the Turks to expect some progress. After all, they closed the Armenian border in solidarity with their Azerbaijani brethren, who would be furious if it were reopened without any move forward on the Upper Garabagh dispute. At the very least, Azerbaijan could retaliate by charging the Turks higher gas prices and favoring Russian export routes over the Nabucco gas pipeline projected to traverse Turkey en route to Europe," the analysts maintained.
The LA Times story also emphasized that in January, Turkey’s foreign ministry objected to a judgment by the Armenian constitutional court saying the protocols are consistent with the main law of the land but setting out as an objective pursuing recognition of the alleged 1915 killings as genocide. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said the ruling contained pre-conditions contradicting the premise of the 2009 reconciliation accord.
"The endorsement of the court, which the US government welcomed, actually opens the way for the Armenian parliament to ratify the protocols," the article claimed, accusing Turkey of trying "to put the brakes on the process".
It said that Turkey’s government agreed to the protocols, in part because it wanted to prevent the US administration and Congress from passing a resolution describing the 1915 events as genocide. But Ankara was surprised by the vehemence of the opposition the deal generated both at home and in its ally, Azerbaijan, which faces a nearly two-decade-long conflict with Armenia.
20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, including Upper Garabagh and seven adjacent districts, has been under Armenian occupation since the two South Caucasus republics signed a precarious cease-fire in 1994 following a lengthy war. Over a decade of efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have been fruitless so far.
Further, the story said Armenia can take "smaller steps" to break the deadlock in its normalization with Turkey.
"Owing to the geography of this region, everyone suffers. Azerbaijan also has an isolated territory that suffers economically -- the exclave of Nakhchivan, separated from the rest of Azerbaijan by an unfriendly Armenia, its road and rail links severed. As a gesture of goodwill, the Yerevan government could take steps to ease the blockade of Nakhchivan in parallel with the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border. The Armenians could also begin work on rehabilitating the long-defunct railway line that once connected Azerbaijan, Armenia, Nakhchivan and Turkey. It is a sad symbol of the closed borders and suspicions that cripple this region, but one day it could be a major east-west transport route."
The LA Times claimed that overall, better relations with Armenia offer Turkey a chance "to lift the burden of history from its shoulders." Turkey's ambitious foreign policy, with its goal of "zero problems with its neighbors" and becoming the central power in its region, will come to nothing if its enmity with Armenia endures, it concluded.*