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Turkey And Armenia Will Normalize Ties

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  • Turkey And Armenia Will Normalize Ties

    TURKEY AND ARMENIA WILL NORMALIZE TIES

    About - News & Issues
    http://middleeast.about.com/b/2009/08/31/turkey-a nd-armenia-will-normalize-ties.htm
    Aug 31 2009

    Could that have been why, when he had the chance in April, President
    Obama refused to condemn the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turks,
    breaking a campaign promise?

    Today, Turkey and Armenia agreed to establish diplomatic relations--to
    "start political negotiations" toward a final settlement, as their
    joint statement had it--seemingly ending a century of enmity borne of
    that genocide during the fading days of the Ottoman Empire. About 1.5
    million Armenians were massacred in that first wide-scale genocide
    of the 20th century. Turkey to this day denies there ever was a
    genocide. As official Turkish history has it, people were dying
    on all sides at the end of World War I, of famine, of population
    "transfers," of war, but Turks didn't intentionally set out to massacre
    Armenians. The record says otherwise.

    Turkey's motives for settling its antagonistic history with
    Armenia isn't a secret. Turkey wants into the European Union. The
    European Union isn't thrilled. Turkey's human rights record, its
    genocide-denial, its increasingly Islamist-flavored, and favoring,
    government, are obstacles to admission. By making nice with Armenia,
    it's one obstacle removed. To that end, Turkey agreed to talks with
    Armenia mediated by Switzerland last year, and in September Turkish
    President Abdullah Gul pulled something of an Anwar Sadat by going to
    Armenia (at the Armenian president's invitation) to attend a soccer
    game between Turkey and Armenia. It was another step in the thaw.

    Had Obama kept to his promise and spoken of the Armenian genocide
    as such, his administration may have calculated (over-calculated,
    in some opinions, mine among them) that it would risk derailing
    the talks with Armenia. It may well have had the opposite effect,
    accelerating them--and ending Turkey's assumption that any time it
    bullies its allies, they'll back down. At this juncture, we won't know.

    What we do know is that as negotiations proceed between Armenia and
    Turkey, the subject of the Armenian genocide remains untouched. So
    does the issue of the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh (where an Armenian
    majority lives, and voted to unite with Armenia), disputed between
    Armenia and Azerbaijan. Turkey backs Azerbaijan in that one.

    Turkey and Armenia's final negotiating round is due to culminate
    in six weeks in Istanbul when, on Oct. 14, the two countries face
    off again on the soccer pitch in a World Cup qualifying match. The
    match won't be as dramatic as it was on June 9 in Yerevan, the
    Armenian capital. That was the first qualifier in the two countries
    group. Armenian played as if they had a chance. They didn't, really,
    getting beaten 2-0 and going on to lose five of the six matches it's
    played to date, and being eliminated along the way.

    Turkey though is still fighting for a spot in the 2010 World Cup,
    barely. so the match against Armenia may carry even more significance
    than a mere signing away of a century of enmity.

    Don't laugh. Soccer can do funny things for diplomacy.l Two countries
    that have already qualified for the 2010 World Cup and may well meet on
    the pitch in front of a world audience of hundreds of millions? North
    and South Korea.
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