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IS THERE STILL LIFE LEFT IN THE TURKEY-ARMENIA PROTOCOLS?
Joshua Kucera
EurasiaNet.org
April 17 2012
NY
After Turkey and Armenia signed historic protocols in 2009 to
normalize relations and reopen the border between the two countries,
the reconciliation process between the two countries quickly stalled.
As my colleague Yigal Schleiffer wrote, "not much longer after
they were signed, the agreement was as good as dead, killed off
by a combination of Turkish buyer's remorse, Azeri bullying and
Armenian naivete." A thorough report on the history of the diplomatic
reconciliation process, by David Phillips, a scholar who has long
experience working in Turkish-Armenian relations, concluded that the
protocols were in fact effectively dead.
But Phillips spoke Tuesday in Washington, and said he is now more
optimistic about the protocols' prospects than he was when he
finished that report last month. Recent trips to Ankara and Yerevan
and conversations with diplomats in both places gave him new reason
for hope, and he said he now wanted to "disassociate himself" from
the pessimistic conclusion he gave in his report.
"Based on the meetings I had recently in Turkey and Armenia, I still
believe that elements of the protocol represent the way forward," he
said. Until recently, Phillips said, he had thought that the Turkish
side was committed to prolonging an unproductive debate about the
historical record of the Armenian genocide, and that Armenia would
never ratify the documents even if Turkey did, "But it's my belief
now that the possibility still exists for that to happen, for the
Turks to recognize that, with the centennial [of the 1915 genocide]
approaching, that it is in their interest to make policy to ratify
the protocols, or to take steps short of that, through an executive
order to simply establish diplomatic relations and open the border
for normal travel and trade."
Also providing room for optimism, Phillips said, was Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan's groundbreaking apology for a massacre of Kurds
in the 1930s. Erdogan was one of the "villains" of the failure of
the protocol, Phillips said, for linking the issue of the disputed
Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno Karabakh to the Turkey-Armenia
protocols. Diplomats on both sides had labored mightily to keep
the intractable Karabakh conflict out of the intractable-enough
Turkey-Armenia reconciliation process, and Erdogan sabotaged that,
Phillips said. But the apology for the massacre at Dersim suggests
Erdogan could be changing, Phillips said:
"To me [this] shows something in his character that I didn't think
he had, which is the ability to apologize. And I know from my own
experience working in conflicts ... that apologizing can be kind
of catchy. Once you apologize for something, it becomes easier
to apologize for something else. So it's still my hope that, as a
humanitarian gesture based on Islamic principles, that Prime Minister
Erdogan will issue an apology for what happened to the Armenians and
will submit the protocols for ratification or, via executive order,
normalize relations and open the border for normal travel and trade."
Phillips is deeply involved in this process, and so if he has reason
for optimism, then perhaps the rest of us should, too.
From: A. Papazian
Joshua Kucera
EurasiaNet.org
April 17 2012
NY
After Turkey and Armenia signed historic protocols in 2009 to
normalize relations and reopen the border between the two countries,
the reconciliation process between the two countries quickly stalled.
As my colleague Yigal Schleiffer wrote, "not much longer after
they were signed, the agreement was as good as dead, killed off
by a combination of Turkish buyer's remorse, Azeri bullying and
Armenian naivete." A thorough report on the history of the diplomatic
reconciliation process, by David Phillips, a scholar who has long
experience working in Turkish-Armenian relations, concluded that the
protocols were in fact effectively dead.
But Phillips spoke Tuesday in Washington, and said he is now more
optimistic about the protocols' prospects than he was when he
finished that report last month. Recent trips to Ankara and Yerevan
and conversations with diplomats in both places gave him new reason
for hope, and he said he now wanted to "disassociate himself" from
the pessimistic conclusion he gave in his report.
"Based on the meetings I had recently in Turkey and Armenia, I still
believe that elements of the protocol represent the way forward," he
said. Until recently, Phillips said, he had thought that the Turkish
side was committed to prolonging an unproductive debate about the
historical record of the Armenian genocide, and that Armenia would
never ratify the documents even if Turkey did, "But it's my belief
now that the possibility still exists for that to happen, for the
Turks to recognize that, with the centennial [of the 1915 genocide]
approaching, that it is in their interest to make policy to ratify
the protocols, or to take steps short of that, through an executive
order to simply establish diplomatic relations and open the border
for normal travel and trade."
Also providing room for optimism, Phillips said, was Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan's groundbreaking apology for a massacre of Kurds
in the 1930s. Erdogan was one of the "villains" of the failure of
the protocol, Phillips said, for linking the issue of the disputed
Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno Karabakh to the Turkey-Armenia
protocols. Diplomats on both sides had labored mightily to keep
the intractable Karabakh conflict out of the intractable-enough
Turkey-Armenia reconciliation process, and Erdogan sabotaged that,
Phillips said. But the apology for the massacre at Dersim suggests
Erdogan could be changing, Phillips said:
"To me [this] shows something in his character that I didn't think
he had, which is the ability to apologize. And I know from my own
experience working in conflicts ... that apologizing can be kind
of catchy. Once you apologize for something, it becomes easier
to apologize for something else. So it's still my hope that, as a
humanitarian gesture based on Islamic principles, that Prime Minister
Erdogan will issue an apology for what happened to the Armenians and
will submit the protocols for ratification or, via executive order,
normalize relations and open the border for normal travel and trade."
Phillips is deeply involved in this process, and so if he has reason
for optimism, then perhaps the rest of us should, too.
From: A. Papazian