Tag: Turkey-Armenia

Erdogan Hopes Sarkisian Will Visit Turkey

U.S. — Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan attends the United Nations Security Council meeting during the UN General Assembly at UN Headquarters in New York, 24Sep2009

25.09.2009

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed hope that President Serzh Sarkisian will pay a landmark visit to Turkey next month and said Ankara’s fence-mending agreements with Yerevan could be submitted to the Turkish parliament for ratification before that.

Sarkisian has been invited by his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, to watch with him the return match of the two countries’ national football teams in the Turkish city of Bursa on October 14. The two presidents’ presence at their first World Cup qualifying played in Yerevan in September last year gave new impetus to the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.

“If the Turkish president can easily go to Armenia to watch a game, then it should be just as easy and simple for the Armenian president [to visit Turkey,]” Turkish media on Thursday quoted Erdogan as saying in a speech at Princeton University in the United States said. “I think asking for certain conditions to be met to decide to come is not the right way forward in international politics anymore.”

Sarkisian has repeatedly stated that he will accept Gul’s invitation only if Turkey takes “real steps” to establish diplomatic relations and open its border with Armenia. The August 31 publication of two relevant draft protocols finalized by Ankara and Yerevan is thought to have made his visit much more likely.

The trip would come just days after the anticipated signing of the Turkish-Armenian protocols, most probably in a third country. Various Turkish sources said last week that the signing ceremony has been tentatively scheduled for October 11-13.

But Erdogan implied in his speech that the two sides could put pen to paper on the Western-backed deal even before that. “If we don’t see prejudice or some domestic political considerations at play, I believe the preparation for the agreement, which has been initialed between Turkey and Armenia, could be taken to Parliament to be ratified,” he said, according to “Today’s Zaman” newspaper. “We hope to take those steps by the 10th or 11th of next month.”

Erdogan did not specify whether his government will seek to push the documents through Turkey’s Grand National Assembly, in which his ruling Justice and Development Party has a majority, if Armenia and Azerbaijan fail to achieve a breakthrough in their peace talks on Nagorno-Karabakh. Sarkisian and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev are expected to a potentially decisive meeting on October 6.

The Turkish premier reportedly said late last week that the Turkish-Armenian frontier will not be reopened until “Azerbaijan’s occupied territories are returned.” Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian swiftly criticized the remark, saying that it contradicts “the letter, spirit and aims” of the Turkish-Armenian agreements.

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1836254.html

September 25, 2009
Armenian Academicians Back Deal With Turkey

Armenia — The headquarters of the National Academy of Sciences.

24.09.2009

Armenia’s National Academy of Sciences officially expressed support on Thursday for the government’s policy of rapprochement with Turkey and the recently publicized Turkish-Armenian relations in particular.

The state-funded institution, which rarely challenges government decisions, discussed the matter at a special meeting of its top decision-making body, the General Assembly, held late Wednesday. The meeting, attended by more than 150 members of the academy and directors of its research institutes, took place behind the closed doors. Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian also took part in the discussion.

Journalists were only allowed to be present at the opening remarks made by Radik Martirosian, the president of the Academy. He was reported to claim that public attitudes towards the two draft protocols on the normalization of Armenia’s relations with Turkey have been “mainly positive” despite existing “concerns” about some of their provisions.

Martirosian noted that all Armenian presidents sought to mend times with Turkey but that only Serzh Sarkisian has managed to achieve major progress with his “dynamic and active foreign policy.”

In a statement issued the next day, the academy’s press service said the meeting overwhelmingly adopted a resolution welcoming Sarkisian’s efforts to “settle relations with neighbors and get Armenia out of the [Turkish] blockade.” “It is said in the resolution that the normalization of relations with Turkey and the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border without preconditions would contribute to the strengthening of Armenia’s geopolitical positions,” the statement said. The agreements allow for the “continuation of that policy,” it added.

The academy meeting was part of “internal political consultations” which Ankara and Yerevan have pledged to undertake before signing the deal next month. Sarkisian discussed the sensitive issue with leaders of 52 political parties mostly loyal to him last week.

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1835693.html

September 24, 2009
Sarkisian To Seek Diaspora Support For Turkey Diplomacy

Armenia — President Serzh Sarkisian and Catholicos Garegin II meet on 24Sept., 2009

24.09.2009

Emil Danielyan, Karine Kalantarian

President Serzh Sarkisian said on Thursday that he will tour major Armenian communities abroad early next month to explain and promote his far-reaching diplomatic overtures to Turkey which many in the Diaspora have been following with unease.

Sarkisian made the announcement as he met with Catholicos Garegin II at the Echmiadzin headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He said he will start on October 1 a series of visits to Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Beirut and Rostov-on-Don, Russia.

All of those cities and their surrounding areas have sizable ethnic Armenian populations. Sarkisian was quoted by his press service as telling Garegin that he wants to hear community leaders’ “views on the process of the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations.”

The supreme head of the Armenian Church welcomed the initiative. “The Diaspora is an important and inseparable part of our people and it is only right for our Diaspora sons … to be able to hear answers from you personally to questions preoccupying them,” Garegin said, according to the presidential press service. “Also, you will expose yourself to the thoughts, opinions and concerns of our Diaspora sons.”

Some Diaspora leaders have expressed serious concern about key points of two Turkish-Armenian draft protocols envisaging the normalization of bilateral relations. They are particularly critical of the planned creation of a Turkish-Armenian panel of historians that would look into the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

Diaspora groups also object to another protocol clause that commits Armenia to recognizing its existing border with Turkey. They argue that it would preclude future Armenian territorial claims to areas in eastern Turkey that were populated by their ancestors until the 1915-1918 massacres.

The Beirut-based Catholicos Aram I, the number two figure in the Armenian Church hierarchy, added his voice to those concerns in a letter to Sarkisian made public on Thursday. “The ongoing developments in the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey have become a cause for serious concern in the Diaspora,” he wrote.

Aram singled out the planned “sub-commission” of historians for criticism. He said its existence would make it easier for Ankara to deny that the slaughter of more than one million Ottoman Armenians was a genocide.

Aram and Diaspora dioceses of the Armenian Church subordinated to him are reputedly close to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), one of the most vocal critics of Sarkisian’s Turkish policy which is particularly influential in the Diaspora. Dashnaktsutyun’s organization in Armenia is now actively campaigning against the signing of the Turkish-Armenian agreements.

The church’s main, Echmiadzin-based Catholicosate has rarely challenged Yerevan governments and will likely be more supportive of the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement. Garegin told Sarkisian that the church’s Supreme Spiritual Council will meet soon to discuss and formulate its position on the issue.

The planned meetings will be part of “internal political consultations” which Ankara and Yerevan pledged to initiate before signing the controversial protocols by mid-October. Sarkisian described the intensifying debates on the matter as “very useful.”

“Of course, they have some emotional manifestations and elements,” he told Garegin. “And it could not have been otherwise because a huge segment of our people are a generation of persons subjected to genocide. Besides, we have our shrines, our churches, our [medieval] capital and the remnants of many, many people’s ancestral homes across the [Turkish] border.”

“I do realize this because often times I myself internally struggle with my emotions,” added Sarkisian.

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1835696.html

September 24, 2009
Armenia Debates Landmark Deal With Turkey

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 174September 23, 2009 By: Emil Danielyan

An ARF rally, September 2009

Yerevan’s fence-mending agreements with Ankara, which are expected to be signed by October 14, have generated lively and bitter debates among Armenia’s leading political groups. Although many of them have voiced misgivings about key parts of the deal, President Serzh Sargsyan should have no trouble in securing its mandatory ratification by the Armenian parliament. Nor is Sargsyan likely to face serious short-term threats to his rule emanating from Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.

The most vocal critics of the process, notably the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, also known as the Dashnak Party), lack either the strength or desire to fight for regime change in the country. Their concerns about the two Turkish-Armenian draft protocols publicized on August 31 revolve around three issues. The most important is the planned creation of a Turkish-Armenian panel of historians that will examine the mass killings and deportations of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Critics allege that Ankara might exploit the existence of such a body in order to dissuade other countries from recognizing the massacres as genocide.

ARF leaders and other government opponents, such as the former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, also strongly object to another provision that commits Armenia to explicitly recognizing its existing border with Turkey. They say the clause is unacceptable because it precludes future Armenian territorial claims to formerly Armenian-populated areas in what is now eastern Turkey. They have also speculated that Sargsyan may have pledged to make more concessions to Azerbaijan in return for Ankara’s agreement to make no reference to the Karabakh conflict in either protocol.

Sargsyan sought to address these concerns as he met with the leaders of 52 Armenian parties mostly loyal to his administration on September 17. “I also recognize the risks, and have concerns,” he said, opening the five-hour meeting behind closed doors. However, Sargsyan insisted that his conciliatory tone in developing relations with Turkey is worth this risk, since it shows that “a nation which endured the cataclysm of genocide” is genuinely committed to making peace with its longtime foe.” He stressed that diplomatic relations between the two neighboring states and an open border would only be the beginning of a long reconciliation process (Statement by the Armenian presidential press service, September 17).

Many participants in the discussion were reportedly unconvinced by these arguments. “At one point, there was disappointment on Sargsyan’s face,” one unnamed party leader told the Yerevan newspaper Iravunk de Facto. “Sargsyan looked like a different person after the meeting,” claimed Aram Karapetian of the New Times Party, one of the opposition parties that did not boycott the meeting (RFE/RL Armenia Report, September 17).

According to Armen Rustamian, an ARF leader who represented the nationalist party at the meeting, the president made clear that the controversial protocols cannot be amended in any way prior to signing the inter-governmental agreement. The ARF drafted and circulated several amendments to the documents (stemming from its objections) on September 15, as dozens of its activists staged a protest outside the main government and foreign ministry buildings in Yerevan against the government’s Turkish policy (Yerkir-Media TV, September 15).

Hrant Markarian, another Dashnak leader, told Radio Free Europe the following day that Sargsyan might fall from power if he signs the deal in its existing form. The warning seemed hollow, since unlike the other opposition forces, the ARF is not demanding the Armenian president’s resignation, despite its harsh criticism of his Turkish policy. Moreover, the influential party known for its hard line on Turkey holds only 16 seats in Armenia’s 131-member National Assembly and is not in any position to block the agreement. It can only rely on the backing of the opposition Heritage party, which controls seven seats. The parliament’s pro-presidential majority has already voiced its unconditional support for the Turkish-Armenian agreements.

The Armenian National Congress (HAK), the country’s leading opposition force not represented in the assembly, has adopted a surprisingly subtle position on the matter. Jamestown witnessed the HAK’s leader, Levon Ter-Petrosian addressing thousands of supporters in Yerevan on September 18. He once again accused Sargsyan of being “fooled” by the Turkish government last spring, but he stopped short of denouncing the draft protocols. The former Armenian president stood by the HAK’s September 1 statement, which described the protocols as a step forward, while rejecting the planned Turkish-Armenian genocide study. “Who needs this belated hysteria now that it is almost impossible to influence the process?” he said, scoffing at the ARF uproar.

Ter-Petrosian himself championed better relations with Turkey, for which he was vilified by the ARF and other nationalist groups during his 1991-1998 presidency. His more cautious stance on the latest developments in the Turkish-Armenian dialogue underscores the changed fortunes of Sargsyan. The latter has remained defensive over a Turkish-Armenian statement issued on the eve of the April 24 remembrance of the tragic events of 1915. The statement, which announced a “roadmap” to normalizing bilateral ties, made it easier for U.S. President Barack Obama to ignore his pre-election pledges to describe the massacres as genocide. Many in Armenia and its worldwide diaspora accused Sargsyan of willingly sacrificing U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide and gaining nothing in return.

The August 31 publication of the Turkish-Armenian agreements, which set concrete time frames for the re-opening of the Turkish-Armenian border without preconditions, can now be held up by Sargsyan as a diplomatic success, even if Ankara stalls or blocks its ratification by the Turkish parliament. In the latter case, Yerevan would be able to portray itself as the more constructive party in the Western-backed dialogue and avoid making any unpopular concessions resented by the Armenian opposition. Both the United States and the European Union have stressed the importance of a speedy implementation of these agreements.

Yerevan was unusually quick to criticize Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for reportedly reiterating that Turkey will not lift the 16-year economic sanctions on Armenia until agreeing to a Karabakh settlement acceptable to Azerbaijan. In a late-night September 18 statement, Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian warned that Erdogan risks wrecking both the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement and the Karabakh peace process.

https://jamestown.org/program/armenia-debates-landmark-deal-with-turkey/

September 24, 2009
Oskanian Condemns Turkish-Armenian Deal

Armenia — Former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian criticizes Turkish-Armenian agreements in a speech, 22Sep2009

22.09.2009

Tigran Avetisian

Former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian subjected Armenia’s fence-mending agreements with Turkey to harsh criticism on Tuesday, saying that Yerevan is giving the Turks “everything they have wanted for 17 years” and gaining very little in return.

In an emotional speech, Oskanian echoed the arguments of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) and other vocal opponents of the deal. He rejected government assurances that it calls for an unconditional normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations.

“The document on diplomatic relations with Turkey that we are to sign should lay the groundwork for long-term good-neighborly relations,” he said. “It should enable the two parties to sit down and frankly talk to each other about both the past and the future. But the existing document does not allow for that. In fact, it precludes such discussions.”

Like other critics, Oskanian singled out two controversial provisions of the draft Turkish-Armenian protocols on the establishment of diplomatic relations and reopening of the border between the two countries. One of them envisages the creation of a joint panel of experts that would look into the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

The idea of such a study was first floated by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a 2005 letter to then President Robert Kocharian. The latter effectively turned down the offer, saying that this and other issues of mutual concern should instead be tackled by a Turkish-Armenian inter-governmental commission.

The creation of such a commission is envisaged by one of the protocols that are expected to be signed by the two governments next month. One of its seven “sub-commissions” is to conduct an “impartial scientific examination of historical documents and archives.”

Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian and other allies of President Serzh Sarkisian have said that the sub-commission would not seek to determine whether the Armenian massacres constituted a genocide. Critics, including Oskanian, insist, however, that Ankara will use the very existence of such a body to keep more countries from recognizing the genocide.

Oskanian also vehemently objected to another protocol provision that obliges Armenia to recognize its existing border with Turkey. “With one sentence, we completely cede our historical rights. We even close the possibility, no matter how formal, of restoring historical justice,” he said in remarks reflecting Dashnaktsutyun’s position on the issue.

The nationalist party believes that Armenia should eventually lay claim to formerly Armenian-populated areas in what is now eastern Turkey. While having no such territorial claims, the Kocharian administration, in which Oskanian served for ten years, avoided explicitly recognizing a 1921 treaty that set the current Turkish-Armenian frontier.

Speaking during an event organized by his Civilitas Foundation think-tank, Oskanian linked the perceived alarming developments in Yerevan’s dealings with Ankara to what he described as a lack of democracy in Armenia. “Unfortunately, our country is very far from being a democratic country,” he said. “And yet that’s what our future and security depend on. We have not made serious investments in strengthening our democratic institutions.”

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1828694.html

September 22, 2009
Nationalists Launch Hunger Strikes Against Turkey Reconciliation Deal

by Marianna Grigoryan
17 September 2009

Nagorno-Karabakh and genocide claims could divide Armenian public opinion on the diplomatic breakthrough. From EurasiaNet.

The tentative Armenian-Turkish plan for diplomatic normalization has sparked Armenia’s oldest political party, the nationalist-oriented Armenian Revolutionary Federation, to take to the streets with sit-down protests and hunger strikes. Public support for the party’s criticism that the Armenian government risks selling out Armenia’s national security interests appears to be spreading, even though it remains far from uniform.

Bearing red party flags and banners proclaiming “Don’t forget, don’t surrender, let’s rebel!” 74 party activists, including 24 hunger strikers, kicked off their campaign in front of the Foreign Ministry and the prime minister’s office in downtown Yerevan on 15 September. The protests will continue until the end of the six-week period envisaged for discussion of the protocols within Armenia and Turkey before the documents’ ratification, the party’s TV ads state.

President Serzh Sargsyan plans to start consultations on the protocols on 17 September with the leaders of Armenia’s major political parties.

Supporters claim that the 31 August protocols imply that Armenia should recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, accept the current Armenian-Turkish state border, and, by agreeing to “implement a dialogue on the historical dimension,” potentially backtrack on the country’s longstanding demand for international recognition of Ottoman Turkey’s 1915 mass slaughter of ethnic Armenians as genocide.

The documents, however, make no such specifications on these topics. Written in broad language, they commit the two sides to opening their joint border within two months of the protocols’ ratification and to establishing bilateral government commissions to work on expanding cooperation in fields ranging from education to energy. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has emphasized in media interviews that border recognition is the first step in the reconciliation process, but the protocols do not mention border recognition.

That, however, does nothing to reassure many Armenians. “We will fight until the end since [the protocols signed with Turkey] contradict our national interests,” one male protestor in his late 20s told EurasiaNet. “We will do everything that promotes our national interests.”

Statements from Turkish government officials that the border will not open until Armenia and Azerbaijan make progress in settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict suggest that attention on the Karabakh issue will increase in the coming months, opined political analyst Yervand Bozoian. “That’s the most dangerous thing,” he said.

The governing Republican Party of Armenia counters that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation is using the protest to score self-interested political points. The 119-year-old party left Armenia’s coalition government in April in protest at President Sargsyan’s Turkey policy.

“The Armenian Revolutionary Federation and other political forces have the right to choose what way to fight,” commented Republican Party parliamentarian Eduard Sharmazanov, the party’s spokesperson. “Any preconditions from Turkey are unacceptable for us.”

Other members of the governing coalition have echoed those comments. “I think we just need good will and courage. We see it in the actions of this president [Sargsyan]. We’ll help the president to settle this issue,” declared Heghine Bisharian, head of the Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) parliamentary faction.

But many Armenians do not see any manifestation of “good will” in the protocols’ provisions. “Turks are so cunning, they will do everything to serve their interests. We know it perfectly well,” asserted 70-year-old Anzhela Garanian, whose parents survived the 1915 slaughter. “How can I believe in their sincerity when I have heard all these stories from my father?”

The Tsitsernakaberd memorial in Yerevan to the Armenian victims
of Ottoman Turkish violence.

Philologist Mkrtich Hambardzumian similarly equates the Turkey of the Ottoman past with the Turkey of the present. He takes issue with Turkish assertions that Turkey’s border with Armenia cannot be reopened until Armenian forces withdraw from Azerbaijani territory surrounding Karabakh. “What are we talking about? Turkey forgetting its bloody history now tries to interfere with the Karabakh issue,” he fumed. “I’m not a political scientist, but the protocol is worrying.”

Suspicion in Yerevan about Turkey’s motives is far from universal, however. Some passers-by at the protest commented on the irony of a former government coalition member now staging hunger strikes to block a government policy. Other Yerevan residents said protestors should consider the future. “I don’t say we need to forget the past,” said 25-year-old designer Emma Babaian. “But two neighbors cannot live with closed borders forever. Bilateral relations will help Armenia economically and will offer an alternative route to Europe.”

The protests are not limited to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. The Heritage Party, the only opposition party represented in parliament, has written Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian about holding a referendum on the protocols. Earlier, Heritage Party leaders proposed a vote of confidence in the president, and a petition to the Constitutional Court. On 15 September, the party called on all members of parliament to appeal for “radical” changes in the protocols.

“The development of Armenian-Turkish relations cannot directly or indirectly be linked to the establishment of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,” asserted the Heritage Party’s parliamentary faction secretary, Larisa Alaverdian.

Meanwhile, Suren Surenyants, a senior supporter of ex-President Levon Ter-Petrosian, the head of Armenia’s main opposition coalition, argues that Turkey wants to take on a leadership role in the South Caucasus, and will, therefore, try to play the role of an impartial mediator on Karabakh. The documents pose no danger to Armenia, he continued. Those casting doubt on Turkey perhaps are trying to conceal their own private agenda, he hinted. “Political groups should be sincere,” he said. “Either we want [to establish] diplomatic relations [with Turkey], which means we need these protocols, or we do not.”

Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter in Yerevan. A partner post from EurasiaNet.

September 18, 2009