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Turkey and Armenia: Opening Minds, Opening Borders

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Turkey and Armenia: Opening Minds, Opening Borders TURKEY AND ARMENIA: OPENING MINDS, OPENING BORDERS Europe Report N°199 – 14 April 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS................................................. i I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 II. THE STATE OF NEGOTIATIONS................................................................................ 4 A. ESTABLISHING DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS......................................................................................4 B. OPENING THE LAND BORDER.......................................................................................................5 C. BILATERAL COMMISSIONS AND HISTORY.....................................................................................5 D. THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH LINK ................................................................................................6 III. THE BURDENS OF CONFLICTING HISTORIES ..................................................... 8 A. GENOCIDE OR GREAT CATASTROPHE?.........................................................................................8 1. Legal definitions ..........................................................................................................................9 2. The Armenian view of the 1915 events .....................................................................................10 3. The Turkish view of the 1915 events.........................................................................................11 4. Aftershocks and the ASALA murders .......................................................................................12 B. TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY, RESTITUTION AND REPARATIONS ......................................................13 C. INTERNATIONAL GENOCIDE RESOLUTIONS ................................................................................14 IV. EXTERNAL INFLUENCES .......................................................................................... 16 A. THE CRITICAL U.S. ROLE ..........................................................................................................16 B. CONVINCING AZERBAIJAN .........................................................................................................18 1. Turkey shuffles priorities...........................................................................................................18 2. Azerbaijani worries....................................................................................................................19 C. THE ROLE OF RUSSIA.................................................................................................................21 V. PUBLIC OPINION ......................................................................................................... 22 A. TURKISH INTELLECTUALS APOLOGISE .......................................................................................23 B. DEBATES IN ARMENIA ...............................................................................................................25 C. TRENDS IN THE DIASPORA .........................................................................................................26 VI. THE WAY FORWARD.................................................................................................. 28 A. THE ECONOMIC DIVIDEND.........................................................................................................28 1. A new impetus for landlocked Armenia ....................................................................................28 2. A boon for eastern Turkey .........................................................................................................29 B. BEYOND OPENING THE BORDER ................................................................................................29 C. COMING TO TERMS WITH HISTORY ............................................................................................30 VII. CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................... 33 APPENDICES A. MAP OF TURKEY AND ARMENIA ......................................................................................................34 B. CHRONOLOGY OF TURKEY-ARMENIA RELATIONS............................................................................35 C. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP ....................................................................................36 D. CRISIS GROUP REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ON EUROPE SINCE 2006 ....................................................37 E. CRISIS GROUP BOARD OF TRUSTEES................................................................................................38 Europe Report N°199 14 April 2009 TURKEY AND ARMENIA: OPENING MINDS, OPENING BORDERS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Turkey and Armenia are close to settling a dispute that Over the past decade, Turkey has moved far from its has long roiled Caucasus politics, isolated Armenia former blanket denial of any Ottoman wrongdoing. and cast a shadow over Turkey’s European Union (EU) Important parts of the ruling AK Party, bureaucracy, ambition. For a decade and a half, relations have been business communities on the Armenian border and poisoned by disagreement about issues including how liberal elite in western cities support normalisation with to address a common past and compensate for crimes, Armenia and some expression of contritition. Tradi- territorial disputes, distrust bred in Soviet times and tional hardliners, including Turkic nationalists and part Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani land. But recently, of the security services, oppose compromise, especially progressively intense official engagement, civil soci- as international genocide recognition continues and in ety interaction and public opinion change have trans- the absence of Armenian troop withdrawals from sub- formed the relationship, bringing both sides to the brink stantial areas they occupy of Turkey’s ally, Azerbaijan. of an historic agreement to open borders, establish These divisions surfaced in events surrounding the diplomatic ties and begin joint work on reconciliation. assassination of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant They should seize this opportunity to normalise. The Dink in January 2007. That the new tendencies are politicised debate whether to recognise as genocide the gaining ground, however, was shown by the extraor- destruction of much of the Ottoman Armenian popu- dinary outpouring of solidarity with Armenians during lation and the stalemated Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict the Dink funeral in Istanbul and a campaign by Turkish over Nagorno-Karabakh should not halt momentum. intellectuals to apologise to Armenians for the “Great The U.S., EU, Russia and others should maintain sup- Catastrophe” of 1915. port for reconciliation and avoid harming it with state- ments about history at a critical and promising time. The unresolved Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh still risks undermining full adop- Turks’ and Armenians’ once uncompromising, bipolar tion and implementation of the potential package deal views of history are significantly converging, showing between Turkey and Armenia on recognition, borders that the deep traumas can be healed. Most importantly, and establishment of bilateral commissions to deal the advance in bilateral relations demonstrates that a with multiple issues, including the historical dimen- desire for reconciliation can overcome old enmities and sion of their relations. Azerbaijan has strong links to closed borders. Given the heritage and culture shared Turkey based on energy cooperation and the Turkic by Armenians and Turks, there is every reason to hope countries’ shared linguistic and cultural origins. Ethnic that normalisation of relations between the two coun- Armenian forces’ rapid advance into Azerbaijan in tries can be achieved and sustained. 1993 scuttled plans to open diplomatic ties and caused Turkey to close the railway line that was then the only Internal divisions persist on both sides. Armenia does transport link between the two countries. For years, not make normalisation conditional on Turkey’s formal Turkey conditioned any improvement in bilateral rela- recognition as genocide of the 1915 forced relocation tions on Armenian troop withdrawals. Baku threatens and massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire. that if this condition is lifted, it will restrict Turkey’s But it must take into account the views of Armenians participation in the expansion of Azerbaijani energy scattered throughout the global diaspora, which is twice exports. While Azerbaijani attitudes remain a con- as large as the population of Armenia itself and has straint, significant elements in Turkey agree it is time long had hardline representatives. New trends in that for a new approach. Bilateral détente with Armenia diaspora, however, have softened and to some degree ultimately could help Baku recover territory better than removed demands that Turkey surrender territory in the current stalemate. its north east, where Armenians were a substantial minority before 1915. Turkey and Armenia: Opening Minds, Opening Borders Crisis Group Europe Report N°199, 14 April 2009 Page ii Outside powers have important interests and roles. The malised Turkey-Armenia relations may ultimately U.S. has long fostered Armenia-Turkey reconciliation, speed up such an Armenian withdrawal. seeking thereby to consolidate the independence of all 3.
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