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  • The ties that divide

    Turkey and Armenia

    The ties that divide

    Jun 15th 2006 | KARS
    > > From The Economist print edition


    Locals dream of reopening the frontier between Turkey and Armenia

    NAIF ALIBEYOGLU, mayor of Kars, a town bordering Armenia, has a
    dream. He pictures a party of Turkish officials embracing their
    Armenian counterparts in the middle of an ancient bridge over the river
    that divides their countries. Reduced by war and neglect to a pair of
    greyish stone stumps on opposite banks of the river, its condition is
    an apt symbol for relations between the two countries. The bridge,
    part of the historic site of Ani (see article), would in theory be
    easy to reconstruct. Fixing the broader relationship between Turkey
    and Armenia promises to be a great deal harder.

    Turkey was among the first countries to recognise Armenia when it
    emerged from the Soviet Union's wreckage in 1991. But bitter arguments
    over the fate of the Ottoman Armenians-did the mass killings of 1915
    constitute genocide?-together with lingering border disputes have
    stood in the way of formal ties. The estrangement deepened in 1993
    when Turkey sealed its land frontier with Armenia (while still allowing
    direct air travel). The Turks acted after Armenian forces had occupied
    a chunk of Azerbaijan in a war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Years of secret talks between Turkish and Armenian diplomats-the
    latest of which were held in Vienna in March- have failed to ease
    tensions. And this is despite vigorous backing for renewed ties from
    both America and the European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join.

    Mr Alibeyoglu, who is from Turkey's ruling AK party, says the
    people of Kars are paying the price. With average annual incomes of
    only $823, Kars is among the country's poorest and most neglected
    provinces. Yet before the cold war Kars was among the young republic's
    most progressive places. It is vividly evoked in "Snow", a novel by
    Turkey's most famous writer, Orhan Pamuk. Locals would attend the
    theatre and ballet and dine on caviar and champagne. Such tastes were
    inherited from former Russian occupiers, whose traces can still be
    detected in the grandeur of its Tsarist-era architecture.

    Mr Alibeyoglu, whose penchant for wine and naughty sculptures would
    have gone unnoticed in those days, now sees a chance to reverse
    his city's decline, but only if Turkey unconditionally reopens its
    borders. By doing this, Turkey would regain some moral high ground,
    as well as securing access to strategic markets in Central Asia
    and beyond. Kars could even become a regional hub in the Caucasus,
    especially if a rail link to Armenia's capital, Yerevan, were
    restored. Trade volumes between the two countries, now averaging
    a measly $100m a year, almost all of it conducted via Georgia,
    should soar.

    There is more. As many as 200,000 members of the Armenian diaspora
    return to their homeland every year. Many would like to cross
    the border into Turkey in order to visit Armenian archaeological
    sites. The tourist trade could be worth millions of dollars. "They
    would also meet Turks and realise they aren't quite as evil as they
    imagined," adds Kaan Soyak, co-chairman of the Turkish-Armenian
    Business Development Council.

    But how to break the diplomatic deadlock? Mr Alibeyoglu's answer is to
    take matters into his own hands. In 2000 he drove to the Armenian town
    of Gyumri, where he appeared on television with his fellow mayor and
    appealed for peace. This autumn, Mr Alibeyoglu will host a festival
    that features, for a second time, performers from Armenia, Georgia
    and Azerbaijan. The Armenians will have to make a tortuous journey via
    the Turkish cities of Trabzon and Istanbul. But the mayor hopes that,
    one day soon, their journey will be much quicker.
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