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ISTANBUL: Nervous neighbors: Five years after the Armenia-Turkey pro

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  • ISTANBUL: Nervous neighbors: Five years after the Armenia-Turkey pro

    Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
    Jan 2 2014

    Nervous neighbors: Five years after the Armenia-Turkey protocols

    DAVID SHAHNAZARYAN


    The evolution of the relationship between Turkey and Armenia has
    entailed various phases, with some contradictory dynamics. The
    Republic of Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Armenia
    as an independent state in 1991. This was followed by the
    establishment of official contacts between Yerevan and Ankara. After
    the 1998 coup that brought Robert Kocharian to power in Armenia, the
    Armenia-Turkey relationship entered a new stage. Kocharian moved to
    revise some key provisions of the country's foreign policy agenda,
    declaring the international recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide
    in the Ottoman Empire as the axis of his foreign policy. In 2005,
    then-Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an wrote a letter to
    President Kocharian proposing that Armenia and Turkey establish a
    joint group consisting of historians and other experts from the two
    countries to study the developments and events of 1915.

    The integration of the `historical' component in the official
    Armenia-Turkey relationship took pace in 1998, conditioning the
    resolution of political issues on the resolution of historical issues.
    This has significantly complicated the Armenia-Turkey relationship,
    which was already preconditioned by Turkey on Azerbaijan, the
    Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the Armenian diaspora.

    A new stage in the Armenia-Turkey relations began in 2008 and resulted
    in the signing of the Zurich Protocols on Oct. 10, 2009. The Zurich
    Protocols failed to take into account two major realities. One was the
    provision on the establishment of the sub-commission of historians,
    which bound the normalization of relations to achieving a common
    assessment of Armenian-Turkish history. The other was the fact that
    the reality of power politics was underestimated. Both the
    international peace brokers and Armenia's authorities tried to
    separate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict issue from the Armenia-Turkey
    normalization process, while for the officials in Ankara they were and
    are indivisible issues. This is the reason for Turkey's blatant
    refusal to ratify the protocols, in contrast to the officials in
    Yerevan who are ready for unconditional ratification and
    implementation.

    What do we have today, five years after the signing of the protocols?
    First, they had a negative impact on the efforts of the OSCE Minsk
    Group to advance the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. Second, the
    tension between Yerevan and Ankara began to mount after the signing of
    the protocols to a level never seen before. Third, Moscow moved to
    exploit this tension to substantially step up its military presence in
    Armenia. The fact that Russia has dramatically increased its political
    leverage in the region is perhaps the most serious outcome of the
    Zurich Protocols.

    It is wrong to believe that the extent of the build-up of Russian
    influence in Armenia is in line with Turkey's national interest. Also,
    no one believes that if Azerbaijan attacks Nagorno-Karabakh and
    Armenia, the Russian military base in Gyumri would act to protect
    Armenian interests.

    The current tension in Armenia-Turkey relations could be diffused, as
    long as the process is free from external mediation. Unmediated
    contacts on the government level should continue, such as Edward
    Nalbandian's visit to Turkey to attend the inauguration ceremony of
    President ErdoÄ?an in August 2014. In fact, these visits are more
    likely to happen after the April 24 centennial.

    Because they were aimed at trying to produce agreement on the past
    from the onset, the Zurich Protocols could not serve as a basis for
    the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations. To usher in the
    post-Zurich phase in Armenian-Turkey relations, it is clear that
    efforts to reconcile issues of history should be clearly separated
    from Armenia-Turkey relations at the state level. Only once diplomatic
    relations are established between the two states can a real process of
    Turkish-Armenian reconciliation between societies (including the
    diaspora) start.

    * Ambassador David Shahnazaryan is a Senior Analyst with the Regional
    Studies Center, Yerevan, Armenia. He served as the Ambassador of the
    President of Armenia on Special Missions and Special Representative of
    the President of Armenia from 1992-95 and as the Armenian Minister of
    National Security in 1994-95. This is an abridged version of the
    original article in Turkish Policy Quarterly's (TPQ) Fall 2014 issue.
    www.turkishpolicy.com

    January/02/2015


    From: Baghdasarian
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