POLICY CARNEGIE BRIEF ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE 87 A p r i l 2 0 1 0 Armenia and Turkey: Bridging the Gap THOMAS DE WAA l Senior Associate, Russia and Eurasia Program S u m m a r y n Armenia and Turkey have embarked on a historic normalization process, but it is now in trouble and the United States needs to take a lead in rescuing it. n If Armenia and Turkey succeed in opening their closed border it will transform the South Caucasus region. But Azerbaijan, Turkey’s ally and the losing side to Armenia in the Nagorny Karabakh conflict, has understandable fears. The international community must invest more resources in resolving the Karabakh conflict and breaking the regional deadlock it has created. n The annual debate over the use of the word genocide to describe the fate of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 has turned into an ugly bargaining process. It is time to take a longer view. President Obama should look ahead to the centenary of the tragedy in 2015 and encourage Turks to take part in commemorating the occasion. THE ArMENiA–TUrKEY the House International Affairs Committee prOTOCOlS voted on March 4 to call the 1915 killings In October 2009 Armenia and Turkey began genocide, causing Turkey to recall its ambas- a historic rapprochement, signing two pro- sador from Washington. Turkey’s outspoken tocols on normalizing their relations that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan fur- showed them a way to escape their tragic ther undermined hopes for normalization past. In 2010, the process has run into trou- in a March 17 BBC interview in which he ble. Ankara appears highly unlikely to ratify threatened up to 100,000 Armenians work- the protocols in parliament, saying it will ing illegally in Turkey with deportation. not do so without progress in the Nagorny This looming crisis will reach a head by Karabakh conflict between Armenia and April 24, the date commemorated as Armenian Azerbaijan—even though that conflict is not Genocide Day. Both Armenians and Turks explicitly mentioned in the agreements. The will seek to influence President Obama to use Armenian leadership is suggesting that, if the words on that day that support their position, Turks do not act quickly, Yerevan should cut while the Armenians will continue to press its losses and annul its signature on the agree- Congress to pass a resolution calling the 1915 ment in April. At the same time the United killings genocide. This puts the normalization States’ capacity to mediate was eroded after process under strain. A “hard landing” for the 2 POLICY BRIEF Armenia–Turkey Protocols will be the cause of humanity and civilization,” and many his- recrimination and introspection on both sides. torians agree that more than one million It will reinforce an unhealthy siege mentality Armenians died. For the Armenian diaspora, in Armenia, with Armenians opposed to the most of whom are grandchildren of surviving process saying their skepticism about Turks is Anatolian Armenians, this issue defines their vindicated. Turkey’s relations with the United identity. Since the 1960s they have lobbied States and the EU will suffer, as they will blame internationally for the killings to be termed a Ankara for its role in the failed process. The genocide. Modern Turkey, the successor state already troubled peace process over Nagorny to the Ottoman Empire, consistently denies Karabakh could shut down further, increas- that there was a genocidal policy toward the ing the threat of violence across the cease-fire Armenians and points out that hundreds Thomas de Waal is a senior line separating the Armenian and Azerbaijani of thousands of Ottoman Muslims died in associate in the Russia and armies. deportations and killings during the same Eurasia Program at the There is now virtually no hope that the two period. Carnegie Endowment, protocols will be ratified soon, but there is time Turkey recognized the newly independent specializing primarily in the for the parties to agree to a “soft landing” that Republic of Armenia after the Soviet Union South Caucasus region would allow each to make small steps affirm- collapsed in 1991. However, bilateral relations comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia and ing their faith in the process. This will allow quickly became captive to Armenia’s escalat- their breakaway territories, the parties to re-engage with the substance of ing war with Ankara’s new ally Azerbaijan over as well as the wider Black the agreements at a later date—probably after the disputed territory of Nagorny Karabakh. Sea region. the 2011 Turkish elections. In April 1993 Armenian forces extended their De Waal is an acknowl- A persistent curse of the Caucasus is that military campaign beyond the borders of edged expert on the its leaders focus on short-term agendas and Nagorny Karabakh capturing the Azerbaijani unresolved conflicts of the their own political survival and lack the will province of Kelbajar. Turkey closed its border South Caucasus: Abkhazia, and political space to think strategically about with Armenia in protest; seventeen years later, Nagorny Karabakh, and the long term. The Turkey–Armenia process the border remains closed. South Ossetia. From 2002 to briefly but heroically defied that trend. It Over the past decade, however, people- 2009 he worked as an analyst was the most positive initiative in the South to-people Armenian–Turkish relations have and project manager on the Caucasus in years and still has the potential to improved. The mayors of Kars and Gyumri conflicts in the South transform the region. If the process is to get have lobbied jointly for a re-opening of the Caucasus for the London- back on track, all involved parties, including border. Armenian tourists visit Turkey regu- based NGOs Conciliation the United States, should articulate a strate- larly, and thousands of Armenians live and Resources and the Institute gic vision for the region, and for resolution work illegally there. There are weekly Armavia for War and Peace Reporting. of the Karabakh conflict. They must set their (Armenian Airlines) flights between Yerevan He is author of the sights on larger goals several years hence and and Istanbul. In Turkey the taboo about talk- authoritative book on the “make haste slowly” toward them. The cen- ing about the Armenian issue has been lifted. Karabakh conflict, Black tenary of the Armenian tragedy in 2015 is a Celebrated author Orhan Pamuk has publicly Garden: Armenia and good reference point by which to set the goal challenged his countrymen to break their Azerbaijan Through Peace of Armenian–Turkish normalization. silence on the fate of the Ottoman Armenians. and War (NYU Press, 2003), The Istanbul editor Hrant Dink—an ethnic which has been translated A TrAGiC HiSTOrY Armenian and Turkish citizen—played a key into Armenian, Azeri, and Armenian–Turkish relations live under the role in bridging the divide. Dink’s assassina- Russian. His new book, The shadow of the mass deportation and killing tion in 2007 by a seventeen-year-old national- Caucasus: An Introduction of the Armenian population of Eastern Ana- ist fanatic triggered grief and outrage. At his (Oxford University Press), will be released in summer tolia by the Ottoman Young Turk regime in funeral tens of thousands of mourners walked 2010. the years following 1915. The allied powers the streets of Istanbul, some chanting “We are at the time called the killings “crimes against all Armenians.” ARMENIA AND TURKEY: BRIDGING THE GAP 3 This small but vocal civic movement with Turkey re-opens, imported goods will backed Turkish President Abdullah Gül as be cheaper and their volume will increase he and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian by 13 percent over five years; transportation moved this rapprochement to a state level. Gül costs will be cut by 20 percent. Armenia will accepted Sarkisian’s invitation to an Armenia– benefit from sharing an open border with a Turkey soccer match in Yerevan in September country that since 1996 has had a customs 2008, and the two sides began working on union with the European Union for trade in measures to normalize relations. Both took non-agricultural products. advantage of a changed geopolitical environ- ment: Russia, Armenia’s strongest ally, backed The Turkey–Armenia process … was the most positive the initiative and has dramatically improved its initiative in the South Caucasus in years and still has own relationship with Turkey in recent years. the potential to transform the region. For Turkey’s governing AK Party, holding out an olive branch to Armenia fit within the For the Turkish government, a successful new “zero problems with neighbors” policy rapprochement with Armenia will allow it devised by its chief foreign policy strategist, to engage in the South Caucasus as a disin- Ahmet Davuto˘glu, who is now Turkey’s foreign terested power. Ratifying the protocols would minister. Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian also be a major step toward ending the per- also saw an opening. His legitimacy had been petual humiliation of foreign parliaments damaged by the violence which accompanied passing genocide resolutions that condemn his election in February–March 2008, and his Turkey. For four decades Ankara has expended courageous decision to invite Gül to Yerevan time and resources fighting the Armenian opened a new credit line of international diaspora on this issue, yet the parliaments support. The Armenian and Turkish foreign of nineteen countries, including Canada, ministers eventually signed two protocols on France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Russia, and normalizing their relations at a ceremony in Sweden, have passed resolutions on the 1915 Zurich on October 10, 2009, supported by, massacres, with most designating the killings among others, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary as genocide.