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Turkey Sidesteps Obstacle to Armenia Pact
Wall Street Journal
EUROPE NEWS OCTOBER 8, 2009
By MARC CHAMPION in Istanbul and NICHOLAS BIRCH in Kars, Turkey
Turkey has dropped a key condition to signing an agreement Saturday that
would reopen its border with Armenia and establish diplomatic relations
between the two nations, which have been divided for generations by a
dispute over genocide.
"The agreement will be signed on Oct. 10," Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan told The Wall Street Journal -- provided, he said, that
Armenia doesn't ask for changes to the text.
Supporters of the pact -- which include the U.S. and the European Union --
say they hope the change could trigger a virtuous cycle, opening up and
stabilizing a region that is increasingly important for oil and gas transit
and last year saw a war between Russia and Georgia.
But in Kars, the Turkish city closest to the Armenian border, skeptics point
to a concrete monument to unity between the two peoples to show why an
embrace between neighbors is far from certain.
The statue of two 100-foot tall human figures, standing face to face on a
hill above the city, is incomplete: A giant hand that would join the figures
was never attached.
It lies abandoned on the gravel below.
The monument, built last year, is now under threat of destruction.
"Small-minded people blocked the monument and they will block the peace
process too," says Naif Alibeyoglu, who had the statue built when he was
mayor of Kars. His 10 years in office ended in March. "You wait and see,
[the deal] will end up like my statue: a statue without hands."
Supporters of the agreement, however, have sidestepped a significant hurdle:
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said in an interview Sunday that the signing
wasn't dependent on progress at talks this week between the leaders of
Armenia and Azerbaijan over their territorial conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
It was because of Armenia's effective occupation of the ethnic Armenian
enclave in Azerbaijan that Turkey closed the border in 1993.
An earlier attempt to sign the protocol in April stalled when Mr. Erdogan
said it could go forward only after the Karabakh conflict was resolved.
The parliaments of Armenia and Turkey need to ratify the protocol for it to
take force, something Mr. Erdogan said he couldn't guarantee, as
parliamentarians in Ankara would have a free vote in a secret ballot.
Mr. Erdogan also said the two processes -- a resolution of the Karabakh
conflict and rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia -- remain linked, and
that a positive outcome at this week's talks, to be held in Moldova, would
help overall.
Turkish officials have continued to indicate that the border could take
longer to open than the three months set out in the three-page protocol.
The Turkish leader said the only obstacle to signing the deal Saturday would
come if Armenia seeks to alter the text.
"This is perhaps the most important point -- that Armenia should not allow
its policies to be taken hostage by the Armenian diaspora," Mr. Erdogan
said. Much of Armenia's large diaspora opposes the protocol.
A spokesman for Armenian President Serge Sarkisian declined to comment on
whether Armenia would seek changes to the protocol.
He said the government would soon make a statement on "steps" concerning the
protocol.
Mr. Sarkisian has spent the week on a multination tour to explain his
position to diaspora groups, some of which have protested the pact.
Opponents say it will be used by Turkey to reduce international pressure on
it to recognize as genocide the 1915 slaughter of up to 1.5 million ethnic
Armenians in what was then the Ottoman Empire.
The protocol would recognize the current frontier between Turkey and
Armenia, and would set up a joint commission to review issues of history,
likely to include the 1915 massacres. Turkey says they were collateral
deaths during what amounted to civil war during World War I.
Mr. Alibeyoglu, the former Kars mayor, worked hard to improve relations
between his city -- a former Armenian capital that changed hands and
populations several times over centuries -- and its natural hinterland, the
Caucasus.
He invited Armenian, Azeri and Georgian artists to festivals, signed
sister-city agreements with cities across the region and, in 2004, gathered
50,000 signatures for a petition demanding the opening of the
Turkish-Armenian border.
Kars would stand to benefit from the ability to trade across a border 25
miles away by train and truck.
But some 20% of the city's population are ethnic Azerbaijanis, who consider
opening the border while Armenia remains in control of a fifth of
Azerbaijan's territory a betrayal.
Sculptor Mehmet Aksoy says he abandoned his plan to run water down the
statues to pool as tears, because nationalists complained these would be
tears of Armenian rejoicing at reclaiming territory.
Indeed, one complaint of nationalist opponents of the protocol in Armenia is
that the treaty's recognition of current borders would prevent any future
claim to the swathe of Eastern Turkey that Armenia won in a 1920 treaty,
only to lose it again in the 1921 Treaty of Kars between Russia and Turkey.
"Why is one figure standing with its head bowed, as if ashamed?" asks Oktay
Aktas, an ethnic Azeri and local head of the Nationalist Action Party, or
MHP, who wants the statue torn down. "Turkey has nothing to be ashamed of."
In fact, the two figures stand ramrod straight.
On the other side of the border, Armenian nationalists have taken to the
streets to protest the pact with Turkey.
Turkey and Armenia are "like two neighbors who do not know each other," says
Mr. Alibeyoglu, who in 2004 organized a petition to open the border. "Is he
a terrorist? A mafioso? We needed to break the ice."
Nationalists applied to Turkey's Commission for Monuments to get
construction of the monument stopped, on the basis that a viewing platform
was built without permission.
In November, the commission ordered that it be demolished.
The monument's fate awaits a decision from the central government in Ankara.
Wall Street Journal
EUROPE NEWS OCTOBER 8, 2009
By MARC CHAMPION in Istanbul and NICHOLAS BIRCH in Kars, Turkey
Turkey has dropped a key condition to signing an agreement Saturday that
would reopen its border with Armenia and establish diplomatic relations
between the two nations, which have been divided for generations by a
dispute over genocide.
"The agreement will be signed on Oct. 10," Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan told The Wall Street Journal -- provided, he said, that
Armenia doesn't ask for changes to the text.
Supporters of the pact -- which include the U.S. and the European Union --
say they hope the change could trigger a virtuous cycle, opening up and
stabilizing a region that is increasingly important for oil and gas transit
and last year saw a war between Russia and Georgia.
But in Kars, the Turkish city closest to the Armenian border, skeptics point
to a concrete monument to unity between the two peoples to show why an
embrace between neighbors is far from certain.
The statue of two 100-foot tall human figures, standing face to face on a
hill above the city, is incomplete: A giant hand that would join the figures
was never attached.
It lies abandoned on the gravel below.
The monument, built last year, is now under threat of destruction.
"Small-minded people blocked the monument and they will block the peace
process too," says Naif Alibeyoglu, who had the statue built when he was
mayor of Kars. His 10 years in office ended in March. "You wait and see,
[the deal] will end up like my statue: a statue without hands."
Supporters of the agreement, however, have sidestepped a significant hurdle:
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said in an interview Sunday that the signing
wasn't dependent on progress at talks this week between the leaders of
Armenia and Azerbaijan over their territorial conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
It was because of Armenia's effective occupation of the ethnic Armenian
enclave in Azerbaijan that Turkey closed the border in 1993.
An earlier attempt to sign the protocol in April stalled when Mr. Erdogan
said it could go forward only after the Karabakh conflict was resolved.
The parliaments of Armenia and Turkey need to ratify the protocol for it to
take force, something Mr. Erdogan said he couldn't guarantee, as
parliamentarians in Ankara would have a free vote in a secret ballot.
Mr. Erdogan also said the two processes -- a resolution of the Karabakh
conflict and rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia -- remain linked, and
that a positive outcome at this week's talks, to be held in Moldova, would
help overall.
Turkish officials have continued to indicate that the border could take
longer to open than the three months set out in the three-page protocol.
The Turkish leader said the only obstacle to signing the deal Saturday would
come if Armenia seeks to alter the text.
"This is perhaps the most important point -- that Armenia should not allow
its policies to be taken hostage by the Armenian diaspora," Mr. Erdogan
said. Much of Armenia's large diaspora opposes the protocol.
A spokesman for Armenian President Serge Sarkisian declined to comment on
whether Armenia would seek changes to the protocol.
He said the government would soon make a statement on "steps" concerning the
protocol.
Mr. Sarkisian has spent the week on a multination tour to explain his
position to diaspora groups, some of which have protested the pact.
Opponents say it will be used by Turkey to reduce international pressure on
it to recognize as genocide the 1915 slaughter of up to 1.5 million ethnic
Armenians in what was then the Ottoman Empire.
The protocol would recognize the current frontier between Turkey and
Armenia, and would set up a joint commission to review issues of history,
likely to include the 1915 massacres. Turkey says they were collateral
deaths during what amounted to civil war during World War I.
Mr. Alibeyoglu, the former Kars mayor, worked hard to improve relations
between his city -- a former Armenian capital that changed hands and
populations several times over centuries -- and its natural hinterland, the
Caucasus.
He invited Armenian, Azeri and Georgian artists to festivals, signed
sister-city agreements with cities across the region and, in 2004, gathered
50,000 signatures for a petition demanding the opening of the
Turkish-Armenian border.
Kars would stand to benefit from the ability to trade across a border 25
miles away by train and truck.
But some 20% of the city's population are ethnic Azerbaijanis, who consider
opening the border while Armenia remains in control of a fifth of
Azerbaijan's territory a betrayal.
Sculptor Mehmet Aksoy says he abandoned his plan to run water down the
statues to pool as tears, because nationalists complained these would be
tears of Armenian rejoicing at reclaiming territory.
Indeed, one complaint of nationalist opponents of the protocol in Armenia is
that the treaty's recognition of current borders would prevent any future
claim to the swathe of Eastern Turkey that Armenia won in a 1920 treaty,
only to lose it again in the 1921 Treaty of Kars between Russia and Turkey.
"Why is one figure standing with its head bowed, as if ashamed?" asks Oktay
Aktas, an ethnic Azeri and local head of the Nationalist Action Party, or
MHP, who wants the statue torn down. "Turkey has nothing to be ashamed of."
In fact, the two figures stand ramrod straight.
On the other side of the border, Armenian nationalists have taken to the
streets to protest the pact with Turkey.
Turkey and Armenia are "like two neighbors who do not know each other," says
Mr. Alibeyoglu, who in 2004 organized a petition to open the border. "Is he
a terrorist? A mafioso? We needed to break the ice."
Nationalists applied to Turkey's Commission for Monuments to get
construction of the monument stopped, on the basis that a viewing platform
was built without permission.
In November, the commission ordered that it be demolished.
The monument's fate awaits a decision from the central government in Ankara.