Turkey-Armenia Detente, A Hard Sell
By Asbed Kotchikian for ISN
The governments of Armenia and Turkey announced the signing of two protocols on 31 August: one for the establishment of diplomatic ties and the other for the development of bilateral relations. The announcement comes almost four months after the two countries agreed on a roadmap toward normalizing relations and opening their closed borders.
The two protocols also aim to establish various sub-commissions to handle issues such as transportation, trade and tourism and more importantly, to examine the ‘historical dimension’ of Armenian and Turkish relations. This will address Armenian demands that Turkey recognize as genocide the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century.
A quick look at the protocols show no preconditions have been set for the normalization of relations. This in itself is phenomenal largely because one of the main preconditions put forward by Turkey to open its border with Armenia was for Armenian forces to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh (an Armenian-populated enclave technically considered to be Azerbaijani territory) over which Yerevan and Baku fought a bloody war in 1988-1994 and which is currently under Armenian control.
At a time when the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoghlu is visiting Iraq and Syria in an attempt to resolve a diplomatic row between those two countries, it seems that this announcement is to be built into a larger context of revived Turkish foreign policy activism.
On the Armenian side, the section of the protocol most criticized in nongovernmental circles is the willingness of Yerevan to establish a sub-commission for the joint examination of history. Some NGOs consider this tantamount to questioning whether the Ottoman Empire committed genocide against its Armenian citizens.
Another noteworthy element of the protocols is energy cooperation - a major issue for Russia, which controls the majority of electricity production and distribution in Armenia. This would subsequently allow Moscow to expand its electricity grid into energy-deprived eastern Anatolia.
Yet another point is Turkish-Armenian cooperation to “address common security threats [...] such as terrorism [...],” which might aim at appeasing the US - another major player that has vested interest in normalizing relations between the two countries.
Finally, the normalization of the relations between Yerevan and Ankara will have a direct impact on Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations as Baku might lose the closed border leverage that it currently has on Armenia, allowing Yerevan to gain better footing in its negotiations with Baku.
The next step is to have the parliaments of both countries ratify the protocols, which could occur within a month, allowing Armenian President Serge Sargsyan to visit the Turkish capital in October by crossing the border as a publicity stunt to attend a football match between the Armenian and Turkish national teams.
The two governments might have signed protocols of understanding, but the general mood among Turks and Armenians might not be as receptive, especially considering that both nations include multi-nuanced groups who reject any rapprochement that would involve tough compromises between the two countries.