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BORDER SHOOTING INFLAMES ARMENIA-TURKEY TENSIONS
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #968
Aug 20 2013
Death of Turkish civilian worsens an already troubled relationship.
By Tigran Hovhannisyan - Caucasus
Tensions have flared between Yerevan and Ankara after a Turkish
shepherd was shot dead after straying over the border.
Mustafa Ulker, 35, was killed on July 31 in an incident which
highlights both Armenia's hostile relationship with Turkey and its
reliance on Russia for security.
The story is complicated by the fact that the soldiers accused of
shooting Ulker were from Russia, not Armenia. Under a 1992 treaty,
frontier guards from Russia's FSB security service patrol Armenia's
southern borders with Iran and Turkey.
Turkish media reported that Ulker was up in the hills tending his
animals, and had just crossed the border to retrieve one of them when
border guards opened fire on him.
Sergei Grechin, the FSB's spokesman in Armenia, said the agency was
conducting an investigation and would make a full announcement when
it was sure of the facts.
Turkey's foreign ministry sent a protest note to Armenia describing
the incident as "inexplicable" and saying the border guards killed
an innocent civilian who crossed the border by accident.
The note had to go via the Armenian embassy in Georgia, as Ankara and
Yerevan do not have diplomatic relations. Turkey closed its border
in 1993 because of the war in Nagorny Karabakh, which pitted Armenian
forces against Azerbaijan, a Turkish ally.
The Armenian government did not respond until three days after the
incident, when the foreign ministry issued a statement regretting
the incident and hoping nothing of the kind would happen again.
A few years ago, Armenia and Turkey began tentative steps towards
unfreezing their relationship.
In 2008, President Abdullah Gul and his Armenian Serzh Sargsyan
famously attended a football match between their two national teams
in Yerevan. This, the first such visit, initiated a process dubbed
"football diplomacy", which continued in the face of widespread public
mistrust in both countries.
The two governments signed a roadmap for better relations in 2009,
but the process has since stalled. Neither side appears ready to move
on substantive issues - Turkey accuses Armenia of occupying Azerbaijani
territory, while Yerevan is demanding that Ankara formally acknowledge
that genocide took place in 1915.
Political analyst Stepan Grigoryan, head of the Analytical Centre
for Globalisation and Regional Cooperation, said the border shooting
would set the process back still further.
"Ankara will now deliver a proportionate response to the killing of
the shepherd," he said. "It may be that Armenian illegal immigrants
who are earning money to feed their families will be deported."
Tigran Hovhannisyan is a reporter for the Izvestia newspaper in
Armenia.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/border-shooting-inflames-armenia-turkey-tensions
From: A. Papazian
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #968
Aug 20 2013
Death of Turkish civilian worsens an already troubled relationship.
By Tigran Hovhannisyan - Caucasus
Tensions have flared between Yerevan and Ankara after a Turkish
shepherd was shot dead after straying over the border.
Mustafa Ulker, 35, was killed on July 31 in an incident which
highlights both Armenia's hostile relationship with Turkey and its
reliance on Russia for security.
The story is complicated by the fact that the soldiers accused of
shooting Ulker were from Russia, not Armenia. Under a 1992 treaty,
frontier guards from Russia's FSB security service patrol Armenia's
southern borders with Iran and Turkey.
Turkish media reported that Ulker was up in the hills tending his
animals, and had just crossed the border to retrieve one of them when
border guards opened fire on him.
Sergei Grechin, the FSB's spokesman in Armenia, said the agency was
conducting an investigation and would make a full announcement when
it was sure of the facts.
Turkey's foreign ministry sent a protest note to Armenia describing
the incident as "inexplicable" and saying the border guards killed
an innocent civilian who crossed the border by accident.
The note had to go via the Armenian embassy in Georgia, as Ankara and
Yerevan do not have diplomatic relations. Turkey closed its border
in 1993 because of the war in Nagorny Karabakh, which pitted Armenian
forces against Azerbaijan, a Turkish ally.
The Armenian government did not respond until three days after the
incident, when the foreign ministry issued a statement regretting
the incident and hoping nothing of the kind would happen again.
A few years ago, Armenia and Turkey began tentative steps towards
unfreezing their relationship.
In 2008, President Abdullah Gul and his Armenian Serzh Sargsyan
famously attended a football match between their two national teams
in Yerevan. This, the first such visit, initiated a process dubbed
"football diplomacy", which continued in the face of widespread public
mistrust in both countries.
The two governments signed a roadmap for better relations in 2009,
but the process has since stalled. Neither side appears ready to move
on substantive issues - Turkey accuses Armenia of occupying Azerbaijani
territory, while Yerevan is demanding that Ankara formally acknowledge
that genocide took place in 1915.
Political analyst Stepan Grigoryan, head of the Analytical Centre
for Globalisation and Regional Cooperation, said the border shooting
would set the process back still further.
"Ankara will now deliver a proportionate response to the killing of
the shepherd," he said. "It may be that Armenian illegal immigrants
who are earning money to feed their families will be deported."
Tigran Hovhannisyan is a reporter for the Izvestia newspaper in
Armenia.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/border-shooting-inflames-armenia-turkey-tensions
From: A. Papazian