A steep stairway to normalization

Unlike taking conventional measures to re-establish diplomatic ties, such as trading, Turkey and Armenia took their first step onto the stairway to normalization through ‘football diplomacy’.

It all started with a football qualifying match between Turkey and Armenia for the 2010 World Cup, in September last year. While no diplomatic links existed between the two states, the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan invited his Turkish counter-part, Abdullah Gül, to watch the match in Yerevan. While small groups of nationalist fans booed the Turkish national anthem or brought anti-Turkish placards to the game, no violent protests were reported. When Mr. Gül invited Mr. Sargsyan to the Turkey-Armenia match on 14th October 2009 in Bursa, the latter claimed he would accept only if agreements would be reached on opening their common border, closed since 1993. This was the turning point.

The ‘football diplomacy’ was successful. Four days before the match, Turkey and Armenia signed protocols in Zurich, creating joint commissions on political and trade relations. Professor Armine Ishkanian argues this to be the neoliberal approach of trading ‘cheese and tea’, possibly leading to peaceful relations.

For many, cooperating on politics and trade inspired hope. Others reacted with heated protests. Indeed, the stairway to Armenian-Turkish normalization is long and steep. The Armenian president in fact agreed to Turkey’s proposition of establishing a historical commission. Its purpose is to examine the clashing perceptions of traumatic events which still shape Armenians’ collective memory and affect the relation between both states : the massacre of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in what is today eastern Turkey, in 1915. While most international historians agree that the systematic killings of the Armenian population qualify as genocide, Turkey has never accepted the term as an appropriate designation of the events. For the Turkish government, Armenians were merely victims of World War I amongst many others. This discord portrays a heavy load on Turkish-Armenian relations impeding their walk up to normalization.

To many Armenians the idea of creating a Turkish-Armenian historical commission means doubting the victims’ memories and invokes their government’s ‘betrayal’. Protests not only broke out on the streets of Yerevan, but also throughout the large Armenian diaspora in Lebanon, France and the USA. As revealed in an interview with an international lawyer who prefers to remain anonymous, “the moral, political, legal ‘toxicity’ [of the 1915 events] cannot be denied and will have to be duly ‘de-poisoned’, for which purpose dogmatically legalistic, formal argumentations will be decisively unsuited. To scrap facts under the carpet will not work and will generate more additional ‘toxicity’”.

Armenian protests against Turkey’s stance on the 1915 massacres

A heated debate at the root of Turkish-Armenian hostile relations.

Source : flickr, jilliancyork

The role of civil society in the reconciliation process between the two countries is indeed essential. When in 2007, Hrant Dink, an editor and journalist of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, was murdered in Turkey for his critical views, Turkish citizens showed solidarity. On the streets of Istanbul, people shouted : ‘We are all Armenians, We are all Hrant Dink’.

Still, nationalist reactions remain frequent in both camps, and efforts from civil society remain too weak to eradicate the tensions. For the political breakthrough to happen, the political will of both governments was indispensable. This breakthrough occurred on the 10th of October. Though, why only now ? Was the underlying reason for intensifying the talks a sudden will for friendship, or international pressure ?

International interests : Pushing for faster normalization

On the 10th of October Armenian and Turkish officials were not the only ones attending the meetings in Zurich. The signing was in fact assisted by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and the EU Foreign and Security Policy representative Javier Solana.

All participants seem to have strong interests in the opening of Turkey’s and Armenia’s common border. Turkey had closed the border in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan after Armenian forces occupied the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh – a territory with a predominantly ethnic Armenian population. Approximately 25,000 casualties and nearly 1 million refugees were the outcomes of this war. International interests could have been the motives for rushing Armenia and Turkey up the stairway to normalization.

For the EU and the US, the open border could lead to reducing their dependence on Russian energy, as oil and gas pipelines could be installed in the Caucasus, linking Central Asia directly to Europe.

The Protocols certainly also have consequences for Turkey’s EU accession. Turkey showed its will for stable and peaceful relations with its neighbours, hence diplomatic strength. Also, Turkey would potentially strengthen its position as a ‘key security provider’, according to Dr. Igor Torbakov, Senior Researcher at the Finish Institute for International Affairs. In a geo-political sense, Turkey would be at least a buffer and at best a key actor between the EU and the Caucasus. If Turkey ultimately became an EU member-state, its good relations with the Caucasus may also ameliorate relations between Russia and the EU. “Good, stable, expanding neighbourly relations with Armenia can be, in this respect, a valuable contribution, even a constitutive element”, argues the consulted international lawyer.

More importantly, normalization could shorten Turkey’s path to EU accession given the significance of the Armenian diaspora. There are 10 million Armenians world wide, of which less than a third has the Armenian nationality or lives in Armenia. Positive developments in diplomatic neighbourly relations between Turkey and Armenia will undoubtedly strengthen Europeans’ support of Turkey’s accession. Once the disputes over the 1915 massacres are appropriately resolved, the diaspora too will have to finally assess Turkey’s policies and its EU accession in a more objective, unemotional, manner.

Mind your step

The signing of the protocols on the 10th of October could be an enormous step towards normalization and good neighbourly relations. Only once the broken first step of the stairway - the 1915 issue - is fixed, civil society will be able to move on alongside the governments. Turkey may then be able to walk up the still steep, yet secure stairway towards EU-membership.