Turkish Forum

Category: Asia and Pacific

  • BORDER TURKS WANT DOOR TO ARMENIA KEPT SHUT

    BORDER TURKS WANT DOOR TO ARMENIA KEPT SHUT

    IWPR’S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 491, May 1, 2009

    Plan to reopen frontier between Armenia and Turkey wins few friends in towns and villages on Turkish side.

    By Sabuhi Mammadli in Igdir, Turkey

    Talk of the possible reopening of the Turkish-Armenian border has left residents in nearby Turkish towns divided on whether such a development is what they need.

    Many say that even if it means certain economic benefits for them, they are not ready to make friends with their Armenian neighbours.

    Igdir is a small town in Turkey. For all its provinciality, it lies in an area of great strategic importance for Turkey, located at an intersection of the country’s borders with Azerbaijan, Armenia and Iran.

    Most of the local people in Igdir are Azeris who moved here from territories in or adjacent to Nagorny Karabakh.

    Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in sympathy with Azerbaijan, following a series of defeats that the latter had suffered in its war over Nagorny Karabakh.

    There are still no diplomatic relations between the two countries due to the still unresolved Karabakh conflict and Armenia’s demands that Turkey recognise the following: the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as a genocide; and the territorial claims of some Armenian political parties to six provinces in Turkey’s north-east.

    But the fact that the opening of the frontier is one of the 35 requirements Turkey needs to meet to be admitted to the European Union has put pressure on Ankara to find a solution.

    Armenia and Turkey, with Switzerland as mediator, have been negotiating behind closed doors on the issue since 2002.

    The unblocking of the border was the top item on the agenda in talks between Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and United States president Barack Obama during the latter’s recent visit to Ankara.

    The issue was also discussed during the Turkish president Abdullah Gul’s short visit to Armenia last September.

    It also featured in the Turkish-Armenian talks being conducted in Switzerland, which resulted in the recent joint declaration of a so-called road map, leading towards hoped-for normalisation of relations.

    Signs that Turkey and Armenia might be moving toward a rapprochement have displeased the Azerbaijan president, Ilham Aliev, however.

    He showed his annoyance by refusing to attend a recent international conference in Ankara, thus sacrificing an opportunity to meet Obama, who attended the event among other high-ranking guests.

    Despite Azerbaijan’s demarches, the Turkish-Armenian road map already envisions reopening two checkpoints on the frontier between the two countries.

    One is located near the village of Alijan in Igdir; the other is in the Kars village of Akyaka.

    Cahid Erol, head of the Igdir department of the National Movement Party, known in Turkey as the MHP, is worried by the momentum leading towards reopening of the border.

    He fears the recent election of a Kurdish mayor in Igdir may have advanced an undesirable, process.

    Erol recently lost the local elections to the candidate of the Kurdish Democratic Society Party, Mehmet Gunesh, whom Erol insists is a sympathiser with the Kurdish Workers’ Party, PKK, deemed a terrorist organisation in Turkey.

    “Now, unfortunately, they’ve appointed a member of the PKK to lead the municipality,” Erol complained.

    He worries that the new Kurdish municipal chief will act on his pledges to open the frontier with Armenia.

    Soon after being elected, Gunesh told a local newspaper he would “open the gates of Alijan”, the village near one of the proposed checkpoints.

    “This will boost the region’s economic development,” he told the same newspaper.

    The idea of trading away Turkey’s alliance with Azerbaijan in exchange for “development” does not appeal to Erol.

    “Our respected [party] chairman, Devlet Bahceli, says, ‘We won’t back off on Karabakh, even if Azerbaijan does,’” he retorted.

    “We would be glad if Azerbaijan took a tough stance on the Turkey-Armenia border reopening issue, and if [President] Aliev upset the plans of Obama and Erdogan.

    “Our party has made its position clear. The border will never be opened, or they will have to step over our dead bodies first.”

    Opinions vary among ordinary residents of Igdir, though many seem as hostile to the reopening of the frontier as Erol.

    Nuri, an employee in the Hotel Barbarossa, in the heart of Igdir, said such a development would stain Turkey’s reputation.

    “I just can’t imagine Armenians traveling freely to Turkey,” he said. “How can it be possible?”

    A local businessman, Ekrem Yesil, struck a similar line. He said the sociology department of the University of Arzrum had recently conducted a survey of 10,000 people, showing the overwhelming majority against reconciliation.

    “Ninety-seven per cent of the respondents said they did not want the border reopened,” Yesil said.

    “Most of the remaining three per cent were members of the pro-government Justice and Development Party.”

    Murat Karademir, of the opposition Popular Republican Party, also adamantly opposes a rapprochement, describing Igdir as “the door to the Caucasus” – a door, he says, that needed to remain firmly shut in Armenia’s face.

    “For Armenians, the town represents a path to Europe via Turkey; in a word, it’s a strategic territory,” he said.

    “Opening this door to Armenians now would mean a catastrophe for Turkey, a threat to its security.

    “Besides, the PKK is very active in this region; it’s not a secret for anyone that many PKK members are trained in Armenia and the occupied Karabakh.

    “It is there that terrorists get their wounds treated. Already it’s very difficult to [prevent them going] crossing into Armenia. Unsealing the border would make it still easier for them to move.”

    Mehmet Aydin, who comes from Alijan and now lives in Igdir, said Ankara had recently made a point of sending envoys to the village to argue for reopening the frontier.

    “They have been saying, ‘You see how Igdir has evolved from a small village into a town after the border with Azerbaijan was opened. That’s what will happen to Alijan, [if the border with Armenia is unsealed]’.

    “Some believe in this propaganda and want [it] to be reopened, but most don’t.”

    But not everyone in Igdir wants the frontier with Armenia to remain shut forever.

    Ahmet Sahin, a local activist of the Democratic Society Party, believes many businesses in Igdir now idling because of economic difficulties could get back on track if the border was opened.

    “I’m an entrepreneur myself,“ he said. “The chemical goods produced at my factory have been collecting dust in storage facilities.

    “What would be wrong if I took my produce to the Armenian market?”

    “The border should be opened, because there are no jobs in Turkey,” agreed Mehmet Broi, a local teacher. “Trade has shrunk too. Armenia is a profitable territory for us.”

    The governor of the area, Mehmet Karahisarli, also sounded a note of optimism about the possible reopening of the border. “[This] would stimulate business activity in both Igdir and the entire district,” he told IWPR.

    But Turkish nationalists continue to reiterate that they will only tolerate seeing the frontier unsealed if Armenia meets a series of conditions.

    These start with Nagorny Karabakh.

    “First of all, Armenia has to un-occupy the territories of Karabakh,” Erol said.

    “Secondly, they should get the genocide demand out of their heads. Thirdly, they should stop asking Turkey for compensation. Fourthly, they should give up their territorial claims regarding Turkey. Fifthly, they should admit to the [February 1992] massacre [of Azeris] in Khojali.

    “Once the Armenians have met all these conditions, Erdogan and Gul can even become related to [Armenian president Serzh] Sargsian for all we care.

    “Until they do, we have nothing to talk about.”

    Sabuhi Mammadli is a freelance journalist.

  • UZBEK AUTHORITIES FIND NEW “ISLAMIST ENEMY”

    UZBEK AUTHORITIES FIND NEW “ISLAMIST ENEMY”

    IWPR’S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 574, April 24, 2009

    Government mounts campaign to weed out associates of Nur movement, although its motives remain unclear.

    By IWPR staff in Central Asia Bishkek

    A Turkish Muslim movement has become the latest target in the Uzbek government’s long and bitter on war on anything it regards as radical Islam.

    In a trial that opened in the western city of Bukhara on April 21, nine men are accused of offences under article 244 of Uzbekistan’s criminal code covering religious extremism, separatism, and forming or belonging to an extremist group.

    Yet little evidence has been brought to show they were members of an organised group, and none that demonstrates they held extremist views.

    The defendants include Ikrom Meryaev, 37, who is deputy head of physics and mathematics at Bukhara University. He and the eight other defendants were arrested in December while meeting at his house.

    They are accused of being part of a movement associated with the Turkish Islamic thinker Fethullah Gülen, which is best known in Central Asia for its involvement in running private lycees.

    Gülen’s movement is also referred to as Nur (Light), derived from the movement inspired by Said Nursi, an Islamic thinker in Turkey who died in 1960.

    In the early Nineties, Turkish lycees sprang up all over the region, attracting the children of the elite.

    Uzbekistan encouraged these schools as a way of fostering political relations with the Turks, who had become interested in their ethnic kin in Central Asia after the fall of the Soviet Union.

    When a series of bombs went off in the Uzbek capital Tashkent in 1999, the authorities blamed two groups – the armed insurgents of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU, and the covert party Hizb ut-Tahrir.

    Soon afterwards, in 2000, the government closed the Turkish schools, apparently out of a fear that they were secretly encouraging Muslim irredentism.

    Although the lycees with Gülen supporters on staff did not teach an openly religious agenda, and the Nur movement’s published ideas have nothing in common with the revolutionary fundamentalism of the IMU and Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Uzbek authorities appear to have tarred them all with the same brush.

    Recent months have seen a series of arrests of alleged “Nurchilar”, as members of the Gülen group are called in Uzbek.

    The latest court case comes shortly after another trial ended in long jail terms for three alleged Nur members accused under the same criminal code article on religious extremism.

    Shavkat Ismoilov, who ran a newspaper called Yetti Iklim (“The Seven Zones”), and Davron Tojibaev, who was chief editor of a magazine called Irmoq (“Wellspring”), got eight years each when sentence was passed on April 9. Mamadali Shahabiddinov, the imam or prayer leader at the Makhtub Eshon mosque in Namangan, received a 12-year term.

    Yetti Iklim and Irmoq made no secret about publicising Said Nursi’s ideas. Yet in 2007, both publications went through the onerous registration process which screens out anything the Uzbek authorities regard as politically controversial or undesirable – there are no opposition media in the country.

    Both the paper and the magazine have now been closed down.

    On February 26, five other members of staff at Irmoq were sentenced to between eight and 12 years, on charges of distributing information that presented a threat to public security, and involvement in the Nur organisation.

    The court heard evidence from prosecutors that the defendants were graduates of Turkish-run lycees.

    At this trial, the accused did not deny spreading Said Nursi’s ideas, but rejected claims that this equated to Islamic extremism.

    “I am against any kind of extremism and I fully support the policies of the Uzbek government,” said one of the defendants, Bahrom Ibrahimov, who got 12 years.

    Anvar Mamedov, the lawyer who defended the men, said little hard evidence was produced that his clients had published dangerous material.

    “The [court’s] findings stated that the general context of the articles might constitute a threat to public security, yet they failed to cite specific sentences or phrases that count as extremist,” he said.

    One human rights group in Uzbekistan, Ezgulik, reports that a total of 50 suspected Nur sympathisers have been arrested around the country. According to Ezgulik activist According to Abdurahmon Tashanov, police are rounding up people who attended Turkish lycees in the past.

    One of these former pupils told told IWPR how he was summoned for questioning by the National Security Service, SNB.

    “They won’t leave us in peace,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to say to them, as I have nothing to do with the Nur people.”

    As is common in a country where state media are used to relay messages from government, the multiple prosecutions have been accompanied by the repeated airing of a TV documentary claiming to show the true face of the Nur movement.

    Entitled, “The light that brings darkness”, the TV programmes used information from Uzbekistan’s National Security Service to underpin its argument that education was merely a tool to secretly train Nur activists for the ultimate goal of creating Islamic states from Turkey to Central Asia.

    “The so-called educational and charitable assistance provided by the Nursi sect is a threat to the national values of the Uzbek state,” the narrator said at one point.

    Analysts question whether the Gülen movement poses even a remote danger to a police state like Uzbekistan, or whether the security services have simply got into the way of identifying Islamic groups as enemies that need to be rooted out.

    “They are looking for enemies where there are none, “said Tashpulat Yoldashev, an Uzbek political analyst now living abroad.

    “What religious organisation could function under the nose of the Uzbek SNB? That’s impossible, given the way the current regime operates.”

    Uzbekistan’s president, Islami Karimov, harassed secular opposition groups out of existence by the early Nineties, and then turned his attention to Islamic groups, clearly fearing that any form of religious expression not controlled by the state might provide a channel for expressions of popular dissent.

    He began by eliminating those Islamic clerics who did not share his vision of religion as an instrument of state policy. This clampdown led to the emergence of the IMU, which conducted armed guerrilla raids in 1999 and 2000 – resulting in mass arrests.

    The radical Hizb-ut-Tahrir was dealt with by similarly indiscriminate waves of arrests, although it continues to operate covertly.

    The government continues to see anything that looks like an uncontrolled expressions of Muslim faith. Gülen’s published views are apolitical and he calls for interfaith dialogue and tolerance. For Uzbekistan’s leaders, it seems to be enough that his followers talk about Islam, and that their inspiration is foreign.

  • Karabakh Eyes Armenia-Turkey Thaw With Suspicion

    Karabakh Eyes Armenia-Turkey Thaw With Suspicion

    The recent warming in the relations of the two estranged neighbours provokes ambiguous reactions in Nagorny Karabakh.

    By Karine Ohanian in Stepanakert (CRS No. 491, 1-May-09)

    In the Armenian enclave of Nagorny Karabakh, there is only one topic of discussion right now: the possible restoration of the ties between Armenia and Turkey, opening of the borders, and what it all means for people here.

    With the Swiss playing the role of mediators, Armenia and Turkey on April 23 announced they had agreed on a so-called road map leading towards normalisation of relations, broken off by Turkey in 1993.

    Political parties, NGOs and local authorities in Nagorny Karabakh have reacted by maintaining that the problem of Armenian-Turkish relations cannot be resolved aside from the Karabakh conflict.

    They say the border issue, acknowledgement of the 1915 Armenian genocide and the problem of Nagorny Karabakh’s status must be solved in one package.

    The unrecognised republic, which has a population of about 140,000, has been demanding independence from Azerbaijan since 1988.

    At the beginning of the Karabakh conflict, Turkey – which hotly disputes the scale of the killings of 1915, as well as use of the term genocide – proclaimed itself Azerbaijan’s “elder brother” and in 1993 imposed a blockade on Armenia.

    Many Armenians continue to regard Turks and Azerbaijanis as members of the same nation, associating both with the terrible events of 1915.

    Therefore, political experts in Nagorny Karabakh view the problem of Armenia-Turkey relations and the Karabakh issue as elements of a single national issue.

    “It’s a very tricky situation for Karabakh, since we place Armenia-Turkey and Armenia-Azerbaijan relations in one bracket,” Hrachia Arzumanian, a local expert on security issues, told IWPR.

    Arzumanian says local people were surprised to hear that Armenia and Turkey had agreed on a road map towards better relations just before April 24, when Armenians traditionally commemorate the events of 1915.

    They had been expecting to hear the word genocide in a speech by United States president Barack Obama that day. He had promised to use the term during his presidential campaign. In the event, Obama used the Armenian phrase mets yeghern instead, which means great massacre.

    “Now this trump card gives them [the Americans] a good excuse to draw back from recognition of the genocide,” Arzumanian continued.

    “Another strange thing here is whether Turkey has made this step forward towards warming relations without preconditions and whether Karabakh will pay the price for this.”

    David Babaian, head of information for the Nagorny Karabakh president, Bako Sakahian, doubts the entity will be sacrificed on the altar of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.

    On the contrary, “the thaw in Armenia-Turkey relations simply rules out the rhetoric of one-sided concessions to Azerbaijan”, he said.

    “It’s in Turkey’s interests to emerge as the main geopolitical actor in the South Caucasus; but it must do so without setting any preconditions, because this undermines that whole process,” he went on.

    The information chief noted that in the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict, if the balance of power tilted too far against the entity, “this threatens not only us, but Armenia too. The Armenian authorities know this, so I think the [peace] process is for the sake of all Armenians and for Karabakh’s sovereignty as well”.

    Not everyone is convinced that Nagorny Karabakh stands to benefit from a rapprochement between Yerevan and Ankara, however.

    “I am against the border reopening right now, on the eve of anniversary of the genocide, and I’m afraid that in taking this step Armenian diplomacy is losing its advantage,” David Ishkhanian, a representative of Armenian Revolutionary Federation, ARF, in Artsakh (the Armenian name for Nagorny Karabakh), said.

    Ishkhanian said Azerbaijan and Turkey remained united in pursuit of their anti-Armenian policy.

    “It’s time to reopen a ‘Karabakh front’ in diplomacy and unite the efforts of the diaspora, Armenia and Karabakh towards reaching our common goals,” Ishkhanian said.

    Meanwhile, April 24, the 94th anniversary of Armenian holocaust, was marked by extraordinarily active and crowded rallies in Nagorny Karabakh.

    People lit candles all night long while youth organisations arranged a torch-lit procession, which ended with burning of the Turkish flag – notwithstanding the protests of law-enforcement agencies.

    A large number of Nagorny Karabakh residents gathered at the memorial to the genocide victims in the capital Stepanakert in spite of rainy weather.

    “This year, especially with regard to recent political developments, I was particularly eager to take part in the commemoration of the genocide and tell the whole world about the necessity of its recognition,” Anush Gavarian, of the Club of Young Political Analysts, said.

    “It wasn’t Armenia that closed its borders with Turkey but vice-versa. Turkey acted against Armenia and still tries to speak set preconditions.”

    No fan of the current reconciliation process, Gavarian said she feared a repeat of events in the 1920s, when Russia and Turkey “decided to sacrifice Armenians and possibly the whole of Karabakh for the sake of their own interests”.

    Gavarian was referring to Stalin’s decision to place overwhelmingly Armenian populated Nagorny Karabakh within the borders of Azerbaijan.

    Karen Ohanjanian, leader of the Social Justice Party, told IWPR that local people felt uninvolved and marginalised by much of the recent diplomatic activity.

    “The public has no knowledge of the context of the road map or about the talks between Armenian and Russian presidents on the principles of Karabakh conflict resolution,” Ohanjanian said.

    Russian president Dmitry Medvedev recently met his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsian near Moscow to discuss energy cooperation and the Karabakh conflict.

    “I hope no preconditions are set at our expense or, as leader of one of the most powerful parties in Nagorny Karabakh, I will take steps to mobilise the masses to prevent any alteration of the Karabakh security system,” Ohanjanian said.

    “Karabakh can’t cede any territories to the detriment of national and physical security of its residents.”

    All political parties in Nagorny Karabakh have released a common statement, urging the international community to acknowledge the genocide of 1915 and recognise the independence of the entity.

    According to Vahram Atanesian, head of the Democracy faction in parliament, “recent processes show Russia and Turkey are trying to solve the problems in the South Caucasus in accordance with their own interests”.

    He urged politicians from Nagorny Karabakh to “remind the international community and the mediators that a resolution of the Karabakh conflict in line with the concept of dividing the South Caucasus into spheres of influence is unacceptable.

    “Any solution that doesn’t envisage our independence within fixed borders is inadmissible for us.”

    But Masis Mailian, chair of Nagorny Karabakh’s Foreign Policy and Security Council, sounds a more cautious note.

    He describes the joint statement of the foreign ministries of Armenia, Turkey and Switzerland on the road map as convenient for Turkey but not as necessarily detrimental to Armenians.

    “If Turkey really claims a regional leadership role, it must no longer remain captive to the senseless ambitions of Azerbaijan,” he said.

    Mailian said he hoped Ankara’s more “pragmatic attitude” towards Armenia might lead to the restoration of diplomatic ties and reopening of the borders.

    “These moves might [then] prompt Azerbaijan to soften its position, leading to more constructive view of the resolution of the Karabakh conflict,” he added.

    Ashot Gulian, speaker of the Nagorny Karabakh parliament, also supports Yerevan’s drive to heal relations with Turkey.

    “The Armenian side is apparently more interested in reopening of the borders [than is Turkey],” he noted.

    But the speaker still describes the thaw in relations as mutually beneficial, adding that it need not undermine moves to gain world recognition of the 1915 genocide.

    “The opening of the Armenian-Turkish border is necessary for both sides,” he said.

    “But since it was stated before that the reconciliation process must lack any preconditions, the efforts to achieve recognition of the Armenian genocide can’t have any influence on the normalisation of Armenia-Turkey relations.”

    Meanwhile, the numerous traders who have been enjoying the more open border regime between Armenia and Turkey for some time – and who sell products brought from Turkey in Nagorny Karabakh – follow events with interest.

    “I have been traveling to Turkey to buy goods for seven years, and frankly, I have never had any problems there,” Marta Arzumanian, a shopkeeper, told IWPR.

    An acknowledged fan of the road map , Arzumanian added, “Personally, I think reopening the border will make our work much easier and will reduce taxes.”

    Karine Ohanian is a freelance journalist in Stepanakert.

  • Turkey and Armenia’s Rapprochement Watched Carefully by Azerbaijan

    Turkey and Armenia’s Rapprochement Watched Carefully by Azerbaijan

    Turkey and Armenia’s Rapprochement Watched Carefully by Azerbaijan

    Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 82
    April 29, 2009
    By: Saban Kardas

    On April 22, the Foreign Ministries of Turkey, Armenia and Switzerland issued a joint announcement saying that Ankara and Yerevan had agreed to work toward improving their relations within the framework of a roadmap under Swiss auspices. United States’ diplomats were also closely involved in the talks which preceded the deal. Although the decision appears as a breakthrough in resolving this long-term dispute, significant obstacles remain before the completion of the rapprochement.

    The joint statement read as follows:

    “The two parties have achieved tangible progress and mutual understanding in this process and they have agreed on a comprehensive framework for the normalization of their bilateral relations in a mutually satisfactory manner. In this context, a road-map has been identified” (www.mfa.gov.tr, April 22).

    Subsequent statements from diplomatic sources clarified that no agreement has been signed and that the parties agreed to continue working toward fully normalizing their bilateral relations. Although the content of the ongoing talks were not disclosed officially, the deal is likely to include establishing diplomatic representations in their respective capitals, gradual re-opening of the border, Armenia’s recognition of Turkey’s international borders, and forming a joint committee of historians to examine the disputed events of 1915 (Sabah, April 24).

    Many observers believe that if the process can be concluded successfully, it will not only end the long-standing enmity within the South Caucasus, but it also will redefine the geopolitical map of the region -helping to connect Armenia with Western interests in the region. Therefore, the decision was welcomed by the international community as a constructive step toward reconciliation. A statement from the U.S. State Department commended these efforts and called on the parties to proceed with the talks without any preconditions and within a reasonable time frame.

    Initially this was anticipated against the background of the ongoing dialogue, which had accelerated over the past year. This was given a renewed impetus following Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s historic visit to Yerevan in September 2008. In addition to their various bilateral talks, the foreign ministers of both countries also met within the context of multilateral initiatives, raising expectations that a deal could be achieved. Earlier press reports speculated that the two capitals had agreed on a roadmap in late March, but they were debating the proper timing to announce this decision (EDM, March 27; Hurriyet Daily News, March 30). After Obama’s recent high profile trip to Turkey, Turkish-Armenian reconciliation was considered imminent.

    However, following Obama’s visit, Ankara stepped back from its commitment to find a solution in an effort to allay concerns in Baku. The Turkish Prime Minister and other officials declared publicly that they would avoid steps which might damage Azerbaijan’s interests, and Turkey would not re-open its border with Armenia unless the latter ended its occupation of Azerbaijani territories (EDM, April 17). These developments rendered an agreement less likely.

    The announcement that the parties had held secret talks and committed publicly to a roadmap represented a major breakthrough. Nonetheless, there have been conflicting accounts from each side as to whether concessions were made on preconditions to start the negotiations. The continued mystery surrounding the content of the talks may prove an obstacle to a final settlement. Nationalist forces and the opposition, both within Turkey and Armenia, remain opposed to the way in which the rapprochement is being conducted -in an absence of public scrutiny. Secret diplomacy is the key to achieving a breakthrough in such protracted disputes, and supporters of normalization on both sides insist that the governments should not bow to public pressure to abandon the process (www.ntvmsnbc.com, April 26). Nonetheless, the widening gap between the governments’ rhetoric and reality risks undermining this controversial foreign policy.

    The Armenian government came under intense domestic criticism, and a minor coalition partner withdrew from the government. Similar problems within Turkey have further complicated these efforts. The AKP government proceeded with the normalization without first preparing public opinion for such a radical decision. It has also failed to keep the opposition informed. Turkish opposition parties are now calling on the government to stop conducting diplomacy behind closed doors, and inform parliament of the current standing of the talks (Ortadogu, April 28).

    Moreover, the Turkish government is criticized for failing to give clear answers as to how the Turkish-Armenian roadmap might impact on Azerbaijan. Apparently, Turkey proceeded with the rapprochement without ensuring Armenia’s response to Azerbaijan’s demands, and this stance contradicted Ankara’s earlier statements that it would protect Baku’s interests. For some Turkish observers, this is an indication that the government did not have a genuine desire for reconciliation with Armenia, but it agreed the roadmap only to remove the word “genocide” from Obama’s April 24 message (Sabah, April 27). For others, Ankara’s zigzagging shows that it is acting opportunistically, which undermines the trust of its partners (Hurriyet Daily News, April 24).

    President Gul ruled out any damage to relations with Baku due to the roadmap, and maintained that it will serve the interests of both Baku and Ankara. The Turkish government is attempting to convince Azeri politicians that its efforts toward resolving its problems with Yerevan also promote Azerbaijan’s interests within international forums (Zaman, April 24). Nonetheless, Azerbaijan’s discomfort with these developments is well known.

    After noting that he was not in a position to tell Ankara how to handle its relations with Yerevan, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, said during a visit to Brussels, that Baku reserved the right to revise its policies according to the evolving realities in the region. Referring to the conflicting news about the content of the Turkish-Armenian roadmap deal, Aliyev added “The world, the region and the Azeris want to know whether the Karabakh issue was removed from the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement. This is a simple question and has a simple answer” (Cihan Haber Ajansi, April 28).

    https://jamestown.org/program/turkey-and-armenias-rapprochement-watched-carefully-by-azerbaijan/

  • Reconciliation and Recriminations

    Reconciliation and Recriminations

    by Barbara Frye
    28 April 2009

    As their government makes overtures to an old foe, many Armenians still wait for an apology.

    YEREVAN | Standing in a threadbare tweed blazer on a sunny day in late April, Zohrab Shahbazyan brushed a tear from his cheek as he watched goose-stepping soldiers carry a large wreath across a plaza. Their destination was Yerevan’s hilltop memorial to 1.5 million Armenians killed or driven from their homes in Turkey nearly 100 years ago.

    Shahbazyan, 75, had come here on 24 April, the day in 1915 that the Ottoman government arrested more than 200 Armenian intellectuals. Most were killed in the beginning of a campaign to drive Armenians out of eastern Turkey during World War I. Many who survived the massacres were marched into the deserts of Mesopotamia and Syria without food or water.

    Like most Armenians in the homeland and throughout the country’s vast diaspora, Shahbazyan said he lost ancestors – 31 of 48 – in what his government and nearly two dozen others have termed a genocide. And like much of Yerevan, he had walked slowly up the hill today holding a single flower, which he would place on a ring around a flame at the center of the memorial.

     

    President Serzh Sargsyan (left) and other dignitaries attend a commemoration ceremony on 24 April in Yerevan. Photo by Barbara Frye.

    “Genocide is not just killing people. They exterminated the whole nation,” he said. “One and a half million Armenians were not buried on their land.”

    In its rituals – prayers by golden-robed leaders of the Armenian Apostolic Church, a visit from the president, an endless procession of flower-bearing pilgrims – the day was like nearly every 24 April since the memorial opened in 1967.

    But it was also different. This year it took place days after the governments of Turkey and Armenia had announced plans to open the border between the two countries, which has been closed since 1993. It was the latest in a series of remarkable events over the past two years that have included an invitation from Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to Turkish President Abdullah Gul to attend a soccer match between the two countries in Yerevan and a public apology from a group of Turkish intellectuals to the people of Armenia.

    But Shahbazyan was ready to forgive only on condition that Turkey give up the territory that many Armenians (and Armenia’s now-superseded 1990 declaration of independence) refer to as “western Armenia.”

    Michael Gulyar had also come to pay his respects. At 19, he is more than 50 years Shahbazyan’s junior. His grandfather escaped the pogroms in Turkey, and of his family, he said, “They don’t want to find terms with the Turks.”

    But he has a different view. “Turkey has changed,” he said. “Many Turkish have a European mentality.”

    And while he condemns the killings and expulsions, he said he understands how complicated the idea of apologizing can be for Turkey. “Now it is difficult because when Turkey recognizes the genocide, they must give back land.” The question of reparations lingers, despite many officials’ efforts to discourage such expectations. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, a political party that just left the governing coalition over the deal with Turkey, still calls for land and property in Turkey to be returned to the descendants of its Armenian owners.

    Outside Armenia, many analysts and diplomats have welcomed the Turkish-Armenian thaw, but inside the country, it’s clear that some are more ready than others.

    “We’re coming to the stage when we must speak more openly to the public about their neighbors,” Edward Nalbandian, the Armenian foreign minister, said. “If you live somewhere and all your neighbors will not be [your] friends, how could you live?”

    Armenia is largely isolated in its southern Caucasus neighborhood. In addition to the closed border with Turkey, movement and trade between it and its eastern neighbor, Azerbaijan, are frozen due to the conflict between the two countries over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave within Azerbaijan that is occupied by ethnic Armenians. The two sides fought a war over the land in the early 1990s and a sporadically broken cease fire is in place.

    Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993, in solidarity with its ally Azerbaijan after an advance by Armenian troops into Azerbaijani territory.

    For years, Armenian officials have insisted that the border closures have not hampered progress, and there is some evidence for that. For more than a decade before the financial crisis hit last year, the country’s economy grew annually by double digits and its poverty rate dropped. But, although Nalbandian said the diplomatic overtures began in May 2008, the August war between Georgia and Russia crimped Armenia’s trade flows and lent some urgency to a rapprochement with its western neighbor.

    Public opinion on the issue is difficult to gauge comprehensively. Some Armenian analysts caution against relying on opinion polls, but they note that Rule of Law, the political party most strongly against reconciliation, took just 7 percent of the votes in the most recent parliamentary elections.

    But those numbers don’t tell the whole story. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation took 13 percent of the vote. “Fifteen years of blockade have not produced the intended result,” said Kiro Manoyan, an ARF official, saying that there have been neither deaths from starvation nor economic disaster and that Armenia does not urgently need trade with Turkey. “It hasn’t been the end of us. We have managed to survive.”

    Manoyan said his party favors an open border, but without preconditions. Turkey has long demanded the withdrawal of Armenian forces from Azerbaijani territories ringing Nagorno-Karabakh, which Armenia deems a security zone for the enclave. Because Turkey has sent recent signals that it would not lift this condition, and because the governments have not released details of their agreement, Manoyan said he can only assume that the Armenian government is acceding to Istanbul’s demands.

    Like Manoyan, Stepan Safaryan, a member of parliament from the opposition Heritage Party, said, “The point is not whether we open the border. The point is how and at what price.”WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

    With deep-seated enmities, the passage of time and the emergence of a new generation typically helps to heal wounds. But in Yerevan, not all the signs point in one direction.

    Adjacent to the genocide memorial sits a museum, opened in 1995. On commemoration day, parents led their children, some as young as 3 or 4, past old photos, enlarged to about 6 square meters, of Turkish soldiers posing proudly behind the decapitated heads of Armenian religious leaders, of an Armenian woman and her two young children who had starved to death and whose emaciated bodies had been left to bake in the desert sun, of white-coated Armenian doctors hanging from a gallows.

    Suren Manukyan, the museum’s deputy director, said, “We understand that it is very difficult for Turks to accept that their grandfathers were murderers. This museum is part of Turkish history, too. The recognition of the Armenian genocide is not just a problem for Armenian society. It’s a problem for Turkish society, too.”

    Manukyan said he sees a change in Turkey. “The first step is a discussion. I think in Turkey now we have this discussion.”

    The 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul by a Turkish nationalist provoked an outcry in Turkey, with tens of thousands of Turks attending his funeral. In December a group of Turkish intellectuals posted an online apology for the events of 1915-1917 in the form of a petition. It has been signed by nearly 30,000 people around the world.

    “Who could envision, just one year ago, two years ago, that 30,000 Turks could sign a petition to ask for [forgiveness] from the Armenian people?” Foreign Minister Nalbandian said.

    Whether they will get it is an open question. Takoulte Moutoufian, 42, was among those parents bringing their children to the museum that day. Asked what she and her husband were teaching their two sons, ages 14 and 9, about Turks, she said, “That they are our enemy.”

       

    Barbara Frye is an editor with TOL.

  • Azerbaijan confirms participation in military drills in Georgia

    Azerbaijan confirms participation in military drills in Georgia

    BAKU, May 1 (RIA Novosti) – Azerbaijani troops will take part in controversial NATO military exercises in Georgia, the defense ministry said in a press release.

    The Cooperative Longbow/Cooperative Lancer 2009 exercises have been slammed by Russia despite reassurances from NATO that they will not involve feature light or heavy weaponry. Some 1,300 troops from 19 NATO countries and its partners are expected to participate, although Serbia, Moldova and Kazakhstan have withdrawn.

    Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said “NATO’s plans to hold exercises in Georgia…are an open provocation. Exercises must not be held there where a war has been fought,” and warned that the exercises could have negative consequences for those who made the decision to hold them.

    The announcement follows a meeting on Wednesday in Brussels between the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

    Aliyev stressed Azerbaijan’s commitment to NATO-Azerbaijan relations and the country’s active participation in the Individual Partnership Action Plan.

    The row between Russia and the military alliance intensified on Thursday following the expulsion of two Russian diplomats to NATO over spying claims and the signing of a border protection agreement between Russia and Georgia’s former republic’s of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

    Russia recognized the two former republics as independent states following a brief war with Tbilisi over South Ossetia.

    The two Russian diplomats, one of whom is the son of Russia’s EU envoy Vladimir Chizhov, were expelled in connection with a spy scandal involving an Estonian official, Herman Simm, who was jailed for 12 years for handing over secret documents to Russian intelligence operatives.

    Russia’s foreign ministry called the move “scandalous” and added “Naturally, we will draw our own conclusions about this provocation.”

    And in a ceremony at the Kremlin on Thursday Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a joint border-protection agreement with the two former republics.

    NATO responded to the signing saying that the agreements were a “clear contravention” of a French-brokered ceasefire deal.

    And U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said: “This action contravenes Russia’s commitments under the Aug. 12 cease-fire agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.”

    Russia expressed its surprise to the reaction with Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko saying in a statement: “It is a surprising point to make as Russia has not signed any truce agreements with anyone in that region.”