By Patricia H. Kushlis
When all is said and done, it took less than six weeks of
tough quiet negotiations under the watchful eyes and steady hands of experienced
Swiss mediators for the Turkish and Armenian governments to sit down and hammer
out certain differences that had been festering for years between the two contentious
neighbors. Some would argue the antagonisms had been poisoning Black Sea
waters for nearly a century.
Will it be smooth sailing from here on in? No.
Certainly not. This is already evident. But the agreement between the two
protagonists signed on October 10, 2009 in Zurich is an important first step.
Sometime last year each government must have decided that it
was in its own self-interest to try to settle outstanding differences with the
other rather than continue the feud ad
infinitum ala Hatfields and McCoys to their mutual disadvantage.
The accord which the two parties signed at the University of Zurich establishes diplomatic relations
between the two countries for the first time in nearly 100 years - with the
hope of reopening the border that the Turks closed in 1993 and ending a century
of acrimony over a bloody past.
In concrete terms, the agreement confirms the border
established in 1921 between Turkey
and Russia as the border
between today’s Turkey and Armenia and sets up regular political consultations
between the foreign ministries of Turkey
and Armenia.
The agreement also has the support of the major international
parties interested in seeing that a rapprochement works.
In fact, the way the signing ceremony transpired, the event
itself seemed almost like a shot-gun wedding with the outside “guarantor” powers
present to ensure the ceremony actually took place. Foreign Ministers from the US, Russia,
France
and the EU were all in attendance. For
the agreement to become legal, however, it still needs the approval of both Turkish
and Armenian parliaments.
And despite the noise on the streets from the
ultra-nationalists on both sides intent upon derailing it, this minimalist framework
is expected – fingers crossed - to obtain the necessary parliamentary approvals. This is mandatory for it to become legal.
Tit-for-tat diplomacy
Yes, there’s lots more that needs to happen. At the top of the list are the thorny issues
of Armenian troops still stationed in neighboring Azerbaijan near Nagorno-Karabakh
– an Armenian enclave in the middle of this Turkic speaking, oil-rich, Muslim
Caucasian neighbor and the opening of the border between Turkey and Armenia
which the Turks closed in retaliation for the Armenian invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh in
1993. The resolution of these two contentious
issues – the Turks say – is inseparable.
This is known as tit-for-tat diplomacy.
Yet from the perspective of too many of the vociferous street
demonstrators – whose antics resemble this past summer’s American tea party tea-baggers
hanging by their strings from the right-wing funded and created Freedom Works
Express – the real issue is “the historical dimension.”
"The historical dimension:" unsealing Ottoman Archives
Here’s the problem: the agreement calls for the
establishment of a panel to discuss the killing of one million to 1.5 million
Armenians in 1915 in the eastern part of the then Ottoman Empire by the Sultan’s
troops. Yet the Armenian government’s decision to refrain from insisting upon Turkish
recognition of Armenian genocide as a precondition for talking, placed on the
back burner this historically-based populist black cloud that has hung for years over the
need to get on with the present. The Armenian acceptance of the 1921 borders should also eliminate another potentially destabilizing irritant - the dream of a "Greater Armenia" that includes areas of Eastern Turkey once inhabited by Armenians.
Future discussions between the two countries are to include the
establishment of “an impartial scientific examination of the historical records
and archives to define existing problems and formulate recommendations.”
Neither Turkey
nor Armenia
dispute the massacre’s occurrence. It
took place in 1915 in Eastern Turkey at a time when the Ottoman Empire – an
ally of the German Kaiser – was under attack by the Triple Entente (France, Britain and Russia). Not only was the Entente’s goal to defeat the
Kaiser and his allies including the Porte (Sultan Mehmed V) but also each Entente member had
designs on specific Ottoman lands for itself - or to hand over to weaker client
states. The rise of Ataturk and the Turkish Republic put a partial dent in the
colonialists' plans. Meanwhile, the collapse of
the Russian Empire and the birth of the Soviet Union gave stillbirth to further
Russian expansion into Anatolia – the home of
Armenians, Greeks as well as Kurds.
What’s in a name?
What is in dispute is whether or not the mass killings of
Armenians in the empire’s eastern part can be classified as genocide – the deliberate
and systematic killing of a racial, political or cultural group. If so, then the descendants of the claim
believe they have a greater chance to obtain compensation for or perhaps even
restoration of their right to the land their ancestors once occupied for
generations. Whether the genocide charge
can be made to stick after a thorough, scholarly, international review of the sealed
archives is not a moot point. It is an overriding
question for the US
and the Europeans as well.
For years, the Armenian genocide resolution now annually introduced
in the US Congress by members with influential Armenian constituents in their
districts – including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – rests on this Armenian Diaspora
claim. It troubles the waters in terms of US relations with Turkey. Also for years, until the Bush administration’s
tiff with the Turks over the Iraq
invasion, US-Turkish relations were seen as a priority for US national security in the Middle
East.
With Bush 43 and his neocon henchmen and henchwomen and their allergy to the Turks gone,
the Obama administration has once again emphasized the traditional importance
of Turkey – the most stable
Muslim-majority democracy in the Middle East - as an important
US ally.
Hillary Clinton’s last minute deal-clinching assistance by
cell phone from a Zurich parking lot just before
Saturday’s “shot-gun” wedding is just one example of the importance the US puts on seeing this dispute settled. Obama’s own speech in Istanbul in April is
another.
Meanwhile, the Turks have an interest in resolving
outstanding disputes with their neighbors. This will help consolidate the country’s
position as a regional power especially in the south Caucasus and improve Turkey’s
standing with the European Union for which it is a candidate for membership. As for the land-locked, impoverished Armenians
opening the border means big gains in trade and investment.
In the long run, the continuation of a century old marathon-length
dispute between Turkey and Armenia is in
neither country’s best interests in terms of economics, trade or national
security. Although Turkish-Greek
relations, for instance, have certainly experienced dizzying swings up and down, a
rapprochement between those two countries begun in 1999 has paid off
for both. It may well take a long time
for Turkish-Armenian relations to rise to the level of those Turkey has
with Greece, but at least reestablishment of diplomatic relations is a start.