By Patricia H. Kushlis
On Friday afternoon April 24, traffic was slower than normal on Washington's Massachusetts Avenue in front of the Turkish Embassy. Across the street, some 25-50 demonstrators waved Armenian flags, shouted angry slogans and held up home-made placards demanding that the Turkish Government recognize as genocide the massacre of Armenians that began in 1915. It was as if those tragic historic events had happened just yesterday. I saw two Greek – not Cypriot - flags in the smallish crowd but no reasons stated for Greek participation.
The Armenian opposite numbers stood on the sidewalk in front of the Turkish Embassy waving Turkish flags and carrying signs proclaiming that what had happened to the Armenians was part of a larger civil war occurring in the then crumbling Ottoman Empire and not a deliberate campaign by the Ottoman rulers or the Turks, the Empire’s successors, to eradicate all Armenians.
Last year the US Congress came within inches of championing the Armenian view on this still firestorm of an issue.
That was last year
In 2008, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi led the Congressional movement in support of the Armenian cause. Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had also both signed letters initiated in the Senate of support to then President Bush. Their agreement most likely had more to do with electoral politics and catering to a financially influential domestic constituency than anything else. It took considerable arm twisting on the part of a beleaguered Bush administration – clearly prodded by Turkish government officials - to beat back this Congressionally-supported “grassroots movement” that demanded the president proclaim April 24th Armenian “genocide” day.
Should the present be held hostage to the past?
The rise of nationalist movements that helped destroy the Ottoman Sultan was then. The Greek War of Independence between 1821 and 1829 was the first and it resulted in an independent Greek state. The Serbs were next. Further to the East, the Armenians and Kurds came nearly a century later. Empires do not necessarily collapse in a moment’s notice.
The “then” of the frozen-in-time Armenian nationalist conflict has been around for nearly a century after that. Neither Turks nor Armenians disagree that the wholesale slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman forces in 1915 occurred - but the Turks argue that times and locations were such that it took place in eastern Turkey where the Armenians - with considerable Russian help - had revolted against Ottoman authorities with the goal of establishing their own state carved out of the empire’s northeast, that Turks were also killed in the melee and that there were no mass killings of Armenians in Istanbul where there had been no similar Armenian nationalist revolt.
Maybe the times they are changin'
On what terms can the Armenian and Turkish governments let bygones be bygones and why are they finally beginning to do so now? And are US interests served best by heeding the siren songs of hyphenated-American lobbies advocating policies that may be counterproductive to American interests?
The good news is that just during this past year Turkish and Armenian Governments have finally engaged in negotiations to begin to put the ghosts of this sordid past behind them. They are doing this with the help of Swiss mediators. The final agreement which will require presidential signatures and legislative approval in both countries is designed to recognize the borders between them and establish a road map for normalization of relations that includes subcommittees on a variety of outstanding issues from the economy and environment to the important historical question of the massacre itself.
As a part of this nascent reconciliation, the Turks have obtained US assurances to intensify efforts to help settle the dispute over Nargorno-Karabakh a breakaway Armenian enclave inside Turkish ally Azerbaijan. This feud erupted before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. In fact, a bitter and intractable war between the then Soviet Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan during the 1980s helped hasten the demise of the Soviet Union.
This year Obama sidestepped the Armenian issue when, contrary to a campaign promise, he did not use the term genocide either during his visit to Turkey earlier this month or on April 24. Instead, he used progress in the bilateral talks as rationale for not succumbing to the Armenian American community’s rhetorical demands. In fact, Obama’s highly successful visit to Turkey may have helped spur the negotiations along.
The continuation of this highly emotional issue is in neither Turkish nor Armenian interests. The tipping point for the Armenians may have come last August with the Georgian-Russian War which, as a Russian ally with a protracted feud with neighboring Azerbaijan, cut off Armenia’s access to the rest of the world. Had its border with Turkey been open – the most natural route – Armenia would not have been as isolated.
Sorting out fact from fiction is crucial
A bilateral historical commission to research, examine and sort out fact from fiction on the controversial “genocide” issue and restore it to the history books is crucial. This is just as important if not more so than joint working groups on economics and the environment.
Resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is another part of this complex picture. Here is where a Clinton-led State Department can be helpful. This role is not new – the US was, for instance, involved as a mediator in 1992 but the times were different, the protagonists unwilling to settle, and the problem festers years later.
Meanwhile, it seems to me that there are appropriate roles for the US to assume in helping resolve other countries’ neighborhood disputes but to allow the interests of domestic lobbies to impede - or worse block – America’s own foreign policy interests should not be allowed to happen. This flaw in our own system needs to be brought under control. Perhaps this is a good time to institute stronger and more consistent relationships between the State Department and members of Congress. That’s where I’d begin.