Torn Between Worlds

Hranuysh Hagopyan, Armenia’s diaspora minister, walks with acting Patriarch Aram Atesyan after an award ceremony in Istanbul on Sunday.  PHOTO by Hasan Altinisik / Hurriyet Daily News

A group of Turkish Armenians were recently honored in Istanbul in a ceremony involving Archbishop Aram Atesyan, and significantly, Armenia's minister responsible for dealing with the Armenian diaspora, Hranuysh Hagopyan. Many Turkish Armenian intellectuals, newspaper, and some of the honorees questioned whether the presence of the diaspora minister was desirable. From Hurriyet Daily News:

“I would prefer not to have a diaspora minister in Turkey,” author Mıgırdıç Margosyan told the Hürriyet Daily News before receiving his gold medal from Armenian minister Hranuysh Hagopyan.

“I’ve been living on the land that [we have] been living on for thousands of years. I am not in the diaspora. This is a terrible irony,” Margosyan said. The writer also directed his criticism toward the Turkish government, saying the lack of a Turkish state official at the ceremony was disappointing.

. . . .

After attending the Global Summit of Women in Istanbul, Hagopyan handed out medals to 15 Turkish Armenians, including Margosyan, composers Garo Mafyan and Cenk Taşkan and Alis Manukyan, the first Armenian female vocalist in Turkey’s State Opera and Ballet.

“We are living in the lands where we have to live. And we continue to pay our debt to these lands,” Mafyan, who is arguably the best-known popular music composer, told the Daily News. He added that he is ready to do everything he can to make sure dialogue continues between Turkey and Armenia.

“It is [still] very important to receive an award from Armenia for contributing to Turkish popular music,” he said.

Turks of Armenian descent or Turkish Armenians or Armenian Turks or however one would group them are a population of at least 60 million people. Most belong to the Armenian Orthodox Church, which has a Turkish Patriarchate in Istanbul apart from Yerevan. Some Turkish Armenians are Catholics, and there are yet others of Armenian descent that do not enjoy minority status under Turkish law and whose numbers are not counted in official government numbers. This "hidden" Armenian minority, consists of people, sometimes referred to as crypto-Armenians, who converted to Islam in the latter half of the nineteenth-century and early part of the twentieth-century when Armenians began to face sharp discrimination, and eventually, Ottoman state-engineered ethnic cleansing.

Under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, Armenians, along with Greek Orthodox Christians and Jews, enjoy "minority status" based on religion. The status granted these minorities rights certain rights vis-a-vis the new republican Turkish state, and essentially granted two separate legal regimes: one for ordinary Turkish citizens, and another for the minorities granted status under the Treaty of Lausanne. (Syriac Christians, Alevis, Caferis, as well as ethnic groups, such as the Kurds, were denied such rights.)

However, some Armenians, Greeks, and Jews complain of being treated as second-class citizens. These minorities are still sometimes accused of collaborating with foreign enemies, and even in the context of receiving EU accession monies designed to protect and promote minority rights, face criticism from some nationalist circles for seeking to undermine the Turkish state.Armenians, in particular, have long faced suspicion of being linked to Armenian terrorist groups and secretly desiring the dissolution of the Turkish state, which many Turks are taught has two main enemies: the external enemies of imperial Europe, and the internal enemies, i.e. minorities who see the disintegration of the country. To make matters worse, Turkish Armenians often get caught in the middle of Turkey's politics with Armenia and other countries, such as when Prime Minister Erdogan responded to a genocide resolution in Sweden by threatening to expel Armenian immigrants in radio interview last March. (This is not to say that the poor Armenian immigrants were not more caught.)

At the same time, Armenians also face criticism from Armenians in Armenia, as well as from the sizable Armenian diaspora. As a result, Turkish Armenians are torn between Turkish citizenship, their relation to the diaspora, of which they are not a part since, unlike even the vast majority of Armenians living in Armenia, they did not immigrate. The vast majority of Turkey's Armenian population are the descendents of Armenians who migrated to cosmopolitan Istanbul following the hard times of the 1890s and onward under the Ottoman Empire (and before 1915), and so escaped the massacres at the end of the Ottoman Empire and the mass dislocation into Syria, the Soviet Union, and scores of other countries that followed.

Vahe Sarukhanyan, writing for Heqt Online, has an interesting piece up discussing Istanbul Armenians as the "Diaspora's Outsiders." An excerpt:

Sociologist [Arus] Yumul says that for the worldwide Armenian diaspora, the Istanbul-Armenian community is akin to a "lost lamb", an "outsider". She says that other Armenians have taken them to task for being non-active in Armenian affairs and for cow-towing to the government in Ankara. Yumul says she agrees with these assessments when it comes to the Ottoman period, but that after Turkish independence Armenians not only didn’t get involved in Armenian politics but also Turkish affairs. It was kind of a survival strategy she noted.

Yumul added that the community is slowly integrating into the larger Turkish society and that mixed marriages are paving the way.

"At one time Armenian parents resisted but this too has faded. The next generation will be more like a hybrid, free to chose whether they are Armenian, Turk..."

She was quick to add that this doesn’t mean that Armenians will disappear in Turkey.

However, the use of Armenian as a daily language of communication is also on the decline; the number of Armenians who can’t speak the mother tongue is growing. Parents send their kids to Armenian elementary schools but afterwards many go to private or foreign high schools so that they won’t have problems with the Turkish language in college.

The 1990s were a turning point for the community in many ways. Armenians, like the other minority communities, began to voice their concerns, speak about the discrimination they faced, and even raise the taboo subject of the 1915 Armenian Genocide

Twenty years ago, all this was unthinkable. What the next twenty will bring for the community remains a big question mark.

More evidence that Lausanne is outdated, and that its continued legal character is becoming more and more anachronistic as Turkey opens up . . .

On another note, Kadir Has University has announced plans to start teaching courses in Armenian. The classes are offered in the context of improving regional relations with Armenia.

For more on the Treaty of Lausanne's lasting impact in Turkish politics, see my post from 2008, "Article 301: An Anti-Imperialist Discourse." For the treaty's misused application in relation to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, see this past post. For more on Turkey's Armenian minority, click here.

The Heart of the Matter

Turks extend messages of mourning for the Armenian victims of the 1915 Ottoman massacres of an estimated 1.5 million people during a series of forced deportations. AFP Photo from Hurriyet Daily News

For the second time in his presidency, President Obama avoided using the word "genocide" in his Aprl 24 commemoration of the massacres and mass deportations of over one million Armenians living in Ottoman Anatolia in 1915. While some might take this as a victory for Turkey, such a reading is sadly mis-informed. The real victory for Turkey is that a debate is occurring in this country, the proportions of which are not appreciated to the degree that they should be in Western countries passing these resolutions.

While Obama eschewed the word "genocide" yesterday, a group of Turks went to Taksim Square to commemorate the massacres, marking the day with memorials to victims and messages of reconciliation, both with the past and with Armenians in the present. The message of the protest: "This is our pain. This is a miurning for all of us." Additionally, a group of Turkish intellectuals issued a statement reiterating their regret of the massacres, recognizing the pain of their Armenian brothers and sisters, and calling for solidarity between Turks and Armenians. Two years ago, the same group had organized a petition since circulated around Turkey apologizing for what Armenians themselves call "The Great Catastrophe," and though the petition did not mark the events with the legal label"genocide" (its signatories were largely not qualified in the fields of law and history to do so -- nor, importantly, are the politicians and lobbyists who work on this issue), the move was a risky one that was open to all of Turkish society -- an important fact, regardless of the number who signed. Additionally, hundreds of Turks continue to take great risks despite continued restrictions on the freedom of expression in order to write articles and discuss the massacres, opening up the debate and pushing it forward despite tremendous threats to themselves and their families (see Dec. 8, 2008 post). Let us also not forget the huge masses of people that came out onto the streets to honor Hrant Dink, carry signs blazoned with the memorable and still repeated phrase, "are are all Armenian." As the coverup of Dink's assassination continues, a large number of these supporters continue to protest the government's lacking investigation into Dink's murder, marking Jan. 19, the date of Dink's assassination, with as much importance in Turkey as April 24 (for this year's protests, see Jan. 23 post).

Talking about the grave sins of one's past is always the most difficult thing for people to do, and this is exactly what is happening in Turkey. Those who lobby on the Armenian question, whether Turks or Armenians, are but mere tools in the game. The real heroes, the true free-thinkers, are those on the Turkish and Armenian sides that have taken steps to question their own history, build cross-border contacts and connections, and step outside of themselves and the nationalist understandings of history they received as children to move their respective societies forward. While the politics of Washington is focused on which congressman supports what for whatever particular reason (almost all strategic, whether in terms of getting the vote of the Armenian diaspora or protecting/advancing bilateral ties with Turkey), the debate in Turkey is something more soulful, more inspiring, and without a doubt, important to watch and encourage. Protocols or no protocols, resolutions or no resolutions, I am confident this debate in Turkey will continue and advance over the coming years.


UPDATE I (4/27) -- Today's Zaman columnist Ihsan Dagi has a striking piece today on the issues I discussed in this post An excerpt:

For the last couple of years, a debate has been opened in Turkey. Conferences have been held, public gatherings have been organized and articles and commentaries have been published discussing different aspects of the Armenian massacre. Even the Turkish prime minster declared last May that “through fascistic approaches, we forced many to leave this country,” and he asked, “Did we do any good?”

As Turkey proceeds along the path of democratization, it has become common to debate Turkey’s past, including the Armenian question. An authoritarian regime with a monopoly on the interpretation of history and with its control of civil society does not allow free research and free debate. The past is presented in a way to legitimize the position of the established regime. This is fortunately changing. The democratization of Turkish politics and the liberation and diversification of civil society is allowing the emergence of plural ideas on the past including the Armenian massacre.

This process will certainly continue. But the critical point is that if debating 1915 is reduced to naming the events genocide, it may block the whole process. Such a strategy provokes Turkish nationalism, preventing the Turkish masses from being attentive to the thesis that contravenes the dominant view in the country. Thus to unlock the hearts and minds of the Turks at large necessitates abandoning the attitude of categorical accusation against the Turks over the 1915 events.

Of course the belief of Armenians should be respected, but they should also understand that the genocide claims make the reconciliation efforts between the Turks and Armenians almost impossible to attain. We can get out of the imprisonment of the past atrocities not by labeling but disclosing it. Calling it a genocide is the shortest way to close the debate. I think both societies should learn more about the time when disasters hit both the Armenians in Anatolia and the Turks in Anatolia and the Balkans. Thus the first thing to do is to let the sides share their stories without a language of accusation, to create empathy, understanding. This is possible.

UPDATE I (4/29) -- Another example of expanded debate in Turkey is the conference in Ankara that kicked off April 24. Katchdig Mouradian gives an account of it at Asbarez.com:

The conference, organized by the Ankara Freedom of Thought Initiative, was held under tight security measures. The hall where the conference was held was thoroughly searched in the mornings by policemen and security dogs, metal detectors were installed at the entrance of the hotel, and all members of the audience had to be cleared by the organizers before entering. Unlike the commemoration events in Istanbul, however, no counter-demonstrations were allowed to materialize.

The conference attracted around 200 attendees, mostly activists and intellectuals who support genocide recognition. Among the prominent names from Turkey at the conference were Ismail Besikci, Baskin Oran, Sevan Nishanian, Ragip Zarakolu, Temel Demirer and Sait Cetinoglu.

Besikci is the first in Turkey to write books about the Kurds “at a time when others did not even dare to use the ‘K’ word,” as one Turkish scholar put it. Besikci has spend years in Turkish prison for his writings. Oran is a professor of political science. He was one of the initiators of the apology campaign launched by Turkish intellectuals. Nishanian is a Turkish Armenian scholar who has authored several books and also writes for Agos. Zarakolu is a publisher who has been at the forefront of the struggle for Armenian Genocide recognition in Turkey with the books he has published over the years. Demirer is an author who has been prosecuted for his daring writings and speeches. Cetinoglu is a scholar and activist and one of the key organizers of the conference.

. . . .

was the first time that a conference on the Armenian Genocide that did not host any genocide deniers was held in Ankara. Moreover, the conference did not simply deal with the historical aspect of 1915. For the first time in Turkey, a substantial part of the proceedings of a conference was dedicated to topics such as confiscated Armenian property, reparations, and the challenges of moving forward and confronting the past in Turkey.

Deadlock Official

Armenia's ruling coalition announced this morning that the protocols signed with Turkey are stalled, and that it is up to Turkey to take further action. Essentially, according to the Armenians, the ball is in Turkey's court. The announcement, coming just two days before President Obama will commemorate the large-scale massacre of Armenians under Ottoman rule in 1915, can be read as an attempt to up the ante in Washington. In its statement, the ruling coalition described Turkey's linkage of the Protocols' ratification with progress on Nagorno-Karabakh as unacceptable. For the full text of the statement, click here. Turkey, for its part, continues to insist that the Armenian constitutional court decision delivered last February also puts acceptable preconditions on the Protocols, hindering their full implementation (namely, on the point of the "historical commission"). From Prime Minister Erdogan's response to the Armenian statement, it does not look as if the statement will make Turkey budge, nor should it have been expected to -- probably owing more to a desire to influence Washington, than Turkey. Some speculated that the two sides had made progress at the nuclear summit in Washington last week, but clearly there is a long way to go. For background, see past posts.


UPDATE I (4/23) -- Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan addressed the Armenian public last night. Bianet has the summary. For the United States' response, click here.

UPDATE II (4/27) -- The International Crisis Group (ICG)'s Sabine Frazier has written an excellent short analysis of the stalled agreement. From the piece:

In spring 2009, Baku's leadership began to appeal not only to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan but also to the Turkish opposition to keep the border shut until its occupied territories were liberated. It threatened Turkey's preferential price for its Shah Deniz natural gas supplies and chances of greater volume to feed the planned Nabucco transit pipeline to Europe. In January of this year, for the first time, Azerbaijan provided significant amounts of gas to Russia. Popular mood against Turkey hardened in Baku, with official support and even puppets of Turkey's leaders being burned in some protests.

Turkish leaders decided that they could not ignore Azerbaijani pressure and with difficult negotiations going on concerning constitutional reform, they do not want to pick a fight over border opening with nationalists in the parliamentary opposition -- and within their own ruling party. Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan made increasingly unambiguous statements that without progress on settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the border would not open, even though this was the strategy applied by Ankara since 1993 with little conflict resolution effect.

In the past several months Turkey did succeed in contributing to reinvigorating efforts to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict under the aegis of the OSCE Minsk Group. Armenia and Azerbaijan are closer than ever to signing the agreement on basic principles that they have been considering since 2005. But they have not narrowed their differences on the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh. While there has been some movement on defining an “interim status” for the entity, Armenia insists that it should have the right to self determination including secession from Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan says that its territorial integrity cannot be violated.

The Armenian government also did little over the past several months to reaffirm its commitment to difficult aspects of the protocols. Rather it tried to distance itself from the establishment of a committee on the historical dimension “including an impartial scientific examination of the historical records and archives.” For Armenians such a commission is generally perceived as a fundamental violation of their very national identity. They don't accept that “the genocide fact” can be discussed. Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan made this most clear in an April interview to Der Spiegel criticizing the idea of a historical commission as “calling into question the fact of the genocide perpetrated against our people.”

Both the Armenian and Turkish leadership comes out of the past months weakened. Armenian President Sarksyan has been heavily criticized by his opposition for making too many concessions to the Turkish side, believing that the border could open despite Azerbaijan's firm opposition and losing a realistic chance in 2009 that US President Barack Obama would state that he recognized the mass killings and deportations of Ottoman Armenians 1915 as genocide. The Armenian parliamentary decision is a victory for the more hard-line Armenian diaspora and a defeat of Armenian sovereign foreign policy making.

UPDATE I (4/23) -- The Global Post's Nichole Sobecki has an informative piece up on the Turkey-Armenia rapprochement, in which a variety of voices may be heard. The piece also has some striking photography of Van, where many Armenians used to reside before the deporations/massacres.

UPDATE II (4/27) -- Eurasia Daily Monitor analyst Vladimir Socor has put out an insightful piece criticizing the logic of the Obama Administration's approach to the Protocols. An excerpt:

Since April 2009, US President, Barack Obama’s administration has pressed for opening Turkey’s border with Armenia unconditionally Thus, the October 2009 Zurich protocols, strongly backed by the US, required Turkey to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia and open the mutual border “without preconditions.”

Washington’s policy seems driven primarily by domestic politics. The administration hopes to remove the annual drama of Armenian genocide recognition from the center-stage of US politics. It seeks its way out of the dilemma of losing Turkey versus any loss of the US Armenian vote. “Normalization” of Turkish-Armenian relations, centered on the re-opening of that border, was offered as a substitute for the unfulfilled electoral-campaign promises to recognize an Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey.

Washington’s normalization concept, however, has also turned out to be unfulfilled. Tilting sharply in Armenia’s favor at Azerbaijan’s expense, it backfired first in Azerbaijan and shortly afterward in Turkey. Instead of de-aligning Ankara from Baku, as seemed briefly possible, it led Turkey and Azerbaijan to close ranks against an unconditional “normalization” of Turkish-Armenian relations, prior to a first-stage withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijan.

The US initiative seemed unrelated to any regional strategy in the South Caucasus. It actually coincided with an overall reduction of US engagement in that region, downgrading the earlier goals of conflict-resolution and promotion of energy projects. Moreover, it risked splitting its strategic partner Azerbaijan from Turkey, compromising the basis for a subsequent return to an active US policy in the region.

. . . .

The logic of the administration’s initiative from 2009 to date has implied that Washington would “deliver” the re-opening of Turkey’s border with Armenia; while Turkey would in turn “deliver” Azerbaijan by opening the Turkish-Armenian border, without insisting on the withdrawal of Armenian troops from inner-Azeri territories. That conditionality is a long-established one in these negotiations. However, Washington currently insists that the two processes be separated and that Turkey opens that border unconditionally as per the October 2009 Zurich protocols.

Breaking that linkage would irreparably compromise the chances of a peaceful, stage-by-stage settlement of the Armenian-Azeri conflict. It would indefinitely prolong the Armenian military presence inside Azerbaijan, placing Russia in a commanding position to arbitrate the conflict, with unprecedented leverage on an Azerbaijan alienated from its strategic allies.

While Washington was surely not expecting such a strong response from Azerbaijan (see Jan. 24 post), it is now all the more clear that a rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey must involve Azerbaijan, taking into account the concerns and interests of all parties involved. While it is perhaps possible to criticize Turkey for placing preconditions on the Protocols, it is also possible to criticize the United States and Europe for not adequately taking into account the amount of pressure Azerbaijan is able to exert over Turkey. Turkey might well "deliver" Azerbaijan, but only if the Azeris are made part of the process. The Obama Administration's exclusion of Azerbaijan from the nuclear summit in Washington on April 12-13 marked a continuation of this oversight, and it is only hoped that the United States will amend its logic in the future.

UPDATE III (5/8) -- Yigal Schleifer gives another good account of the breakdown of the rapproachment at the Eurasianet website.

More Resolutions, More Troubles

Three significant developments unfolded in the past two weeks in regard to Armenia. One, on March 12 the Swedish Riksdag voted by a margin of one vote to define the 1915 massacres of Armenians genocide in a non-binding resolution that the Swedish government has flatly denounced. Two, Obama Administration officials in the State Department have backed off affirmations that the genocide resolution passed in the House Foreign Affairs Committee will not come to a floor vote. Three, Prime Minister Erdogan, in an interview with BBC's Turkish-language service, seemed to threaten to crack down on undocumented Armenians working in Turkey.

Sweden

Following the unexpected March 12 vote, Turkey recalled its ambassador to Sweden, Zeygun Korkuturk, and Prime Minister cancelled a trip he was planning to make to Stockholm on March 17 to sign a strategic partnership with the country that would resemble partnerships already in place with Spain and Italy. The partnership has been put on hold despite assurances from the Swedish government that the resolution has no legal bearing nor will it be adopted as official policy by Sweden's center-reight government. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt assured Turkey that they thought the resolution unwise, and adopted the Turkish government's position that genocide resolutions passed by foeign parliaments threaten reconciliation with Armenia. Significantly, the Swedish genocide resolution did not limit itself to the Armenian community living in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, but also recognized atrocities committed against other Christian communities. This week the Swedish government announced that it would be providing financial assistance to Turkey to help it along with the EU accession process, including increased funding to Turkish civil society groups. Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation Gunilla Carlsson said, “Turkish EU membership is strategically important for the European Union. Sweden is in a position to provide support in connection with these needs and can help strengthen civil society by supporting organizations working for the rights of minorities and other groups in need.”

United States

Turkey has yet to send back Ambassador to the United States Namik Tan though three weeks have passed since the U.S. House committee vote on March 2. Erdogan has said that he wants a clear signal from the United States that the resolution will not be passed, and still publicly blames the Obama Administration for not doing more against the resolution. Yet, so far the Obama Administration has proven unwilling or unable to send such a clear signal. At an event held at the Brookings Institution, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon said Congress was an independent body and that "they are going to do what they decide to do." Gordon did echo the Turkish government's position that the resolution is an obstacle to reconciliation. Following an invitation to a summit on nuclear energy to be held on April 13-14, Erdogan said he will not be attending, indiciating that he will send someone lower in the government chain-of-command. With Turkish officials still unwilling to visit Washington in the current climate, the American-Turkish Council and the Turkish-American Business Council have pulled the plans to hold their annual conference on April 11-14. Similarly, the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (TUSIAD) called off a trip to the US that was scheduled for March 16-17. An issue of some curiousity occured when Virgina Foxx, who heads the Congressional Turkey Caucus, told Turkish journalists that House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Howard Berman had told her that the resolution would not move to a floor vote, though Berman strongly denied that such a message was made. When Tan will be sent back to Washington remains unclear, though all eyes will be turned to Washington as April 24 approaches. For an understanding of the genocide resolution's place in American politics, see former Ambasador to Turkey and Century Foundation Senior Fellow Mort Abramowitz' piece in The National Interest.

Perhaps Some of Us Are Not So Armenian After All

In the heat following the Swedish resolution, Erdogan's inclusion to brin undocumented Armenian workers in Turkey into the discussion earned the prime minister domestic and international condemnation (see interview, in Turkish). Erdogan remarked,

Look, there are 170,000 Armenians in my country -- 70,000 of them are my citizens, but we are managing [tolerating] 100,000 of them in our country. So, what will we do tomorrow? If it is necessary, I will tell them, ‘Come on, back to your country.' I will do it. Why? They are not my citizens. I am not obliged to keep them in my country. I mean these are [defenders of the Armenian claims of genocide], their attitude is affecting our sincere attitude in a negative way, and they are not aware of it.

For an excellent report on the Turkish reaction to Erdogan's remarks, see Ayse Karabat's reporting in Today's Zaman. From Karabat:

Leaving aside foreign policy considerations, civil society organizations criticized Erdoğan's remarks on several grounds: first, he mentioned Armenian Turkish citizens together with the citizens of Armenia, and secondly, he was using foreign workers as a tool of foreign policy and neglecting the humanitarian side of the problem.

But Suat Kınıklıoğlu, deputy chairman of the AK Party Foreign Affairs Committee, underlined that Erdoğan was trying to explain that Turkey tolerates the irregular Armenian workers. “As has been known for many years, there are Armenians illegally living and working in Turkey, and as a reflection of our goodwill and efforts toward normalization which started in 2005, we do not really touch them.

We tolerate them and take their difficult circumstances into consideration. In particular, we are not questioning their status due to the acceleration of the normalization process in Turkish-Armenian relations. The prime minister needed to draw this fact to people’s attention, especially now, when resolutions have been accepted which damage normalization. I think Turkey’s magnanimity is being ignored,” he said, and added that the prime minister did not mean he would immediately send those workers back to their country.

Öztürk Türkdoğan, the chairman of the Human Rights Association (İHD), said Erdoğan’s remarks could easily be considered a “threat” and as discrimination. “These remarks could lead some people to think that to expel people is a 2010 version of forced migration. This mentality is far from human rights-oriented thinking. People have the right to work, and this is universal. There are many Turkish workers all over the world; does it mean that Turkey will accept their expulsion when there is an international problem? Secondly, these remarks are discriminatory; there are many workers in Turkey of different nationalities,” he said.

As Karabat goes onto examine, the 100,000 number Erdogan gave the BBC is also quite controversial. A recent study by the Eurasia Partnership Foundation puts the number at between 12,000 and 13,000 Armenian citizens working in Turkey, and CHP leader Deniz Baykal, citing numbers from the Ministry of Labor, put the number at an estimated 14,000. BDP member Ufak Uras also criticized the remarks: “The prime minister’s remarks reflect the deportation concept of the 21st century. While we consider similar remarks as racist or xenophobic when directed to Turkish immigrants living in Europe, it is unacceptable to talk in this manner about the immigrants in our country."

The press' reaction was also quite strong, the Armenian newspaper Agos running the headline, "A Lot of Unionists, But No Progress" (see Today's Zaman columnist Sahin Alpay on the media reaction, as well as his inclusion of more positive statements Erdogan has made on the Armenian Question). Arguing that his comments were taken out of context, Erdogan blamed the media for inflating/maliciously reporting the story.

31 Turkish NGOs signed a joint condemnation of Erdogan's remarks, from which Bianet extracts the following points:

* Nobody abandons the place where he/she was born for insignificant reasons; and nobody stays in a country where they cannot find work.

* The Armenian immigrant workers have the right to humane treatment just as anybody else.

* It is unacceptable to make thousands of defenseless people subject to bargaining in order to dismiss the decisions that might be taken by third countries parliaments.

* Erdoğan is the Prime Minister of a country that alleges to bring together civilizations, to sort out the quarrels and normalize relations with Armenia which are international demands. In these terms, Erdoğan's statement carved out a huge contrast.

For another hearty response to Erdogan's comments, see the Armenian Weekly's Katchdig Mouradian's post on a blog he is writing to chronicle his experiences as a member of an American delegation of analysts and commentators visiting Turkey organized by Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV). Also worth a glimpse is Today's Zaman columnist Orhan Kemal Cengiz's look at the work of Turkish historian Taner Akcam. In his column, Cengiz excerpts part of a leter Akcer addressed to Erdogan and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, part of which I have excerpted here:

Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. Arınç, the answers to the problems that are the legacy of 1915 can’t be found in the denialist policies of Veli Küçük, Doğu Perinçek, Şükrü Elekdağ and Yusuf Halaçoğlu. Don’t search for the answers there. You won’t get anywhere repeating the chorus they’ve been singing for 95 years. They are your adversaries on the issue of 1915, just as they are when it comes to the Kurdish issue and the issue of the military’s place in politics. You cannot construct your response to 1915 by holding rank with those who want to drag the country into chaos, who murdered Hrant Dink, who have planned massacres against Christians and who have been plotting coups against you.

“If you are going to respond to 1915, you need to search for an answer different from the answers given by Ergenekon or by those who plotted the coups. To do this, you should follow your Muslim roots in Anatolia that have grown alongside your party and take a closer look at what these roots did during 1915.

. . . .

Mr. Arınç, you can’t build a future on the backs of murderers. You can build a future on the backs of those righteous Muslims in Anatolia who challenged the murderers. In the same way that you can’t resolve today’s problems by supporting Hrant’s murderers, the ‘Samasts’ and the ‘Veli Küçüks,’ you won’t get anywhere supporting the murderers of the Hrants of the past. The answers to 1915 can’t be found in the answers of Doğu Perinçek or Veli Küçük. They are members of the Ergenekon gang that killed Hrant Dink; it’s natural that they defend the murderers of the Hrants of the past. Let the ‘Veli Küçüks’ defend the murderer Samast of today and the murderers Talat, Enver and Kemal of yesterday. Your place is not at the side of Veli Küçük. Your duty is to stand by the side of the ‘Haji Halils,’ to stand up for those Muslims who put themselves and their families at risk by opposing the massacres.

As for the status of the protocols, which seem most certainly dead in the water, Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan continues to accuse Ankara of using the genocide resolutions as another pretext not to introduce ratification. With the prime minister's most recent remarks, ratification might indeed prove all the more difficult in Armenia, the diaspora and Armenian nationalists having been handed a huge propaganda gift.


UPDATE I (3/24) -- Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc announced plans to make new policies ensuring that the children of Armenian immigrants receive proper education in Turkish schools.

Also, TUSIAD has announced that it will send a delegation to the United States after all. The visit will occur April 19-20, just days before Obama will issue a statement addressed to the Armenian community on April 24 in which all eyes will be on the American president to see if he uses the word "genocide" to label the massacres of 1915. Last year, he chose to refer to the events as the "Great Catastophe (Metz Yeghern in Armenian)," a phrase many Armenians have for years used, and which recently some Turks have employed, albeit quite controversially.

UPDATE II (3/26) -- Prime Minister Erdogan has announced that Korkuturk will return to Stockholm next week. Also, Today's Zaman columnist Etyen Mahcupyan, with whom Bulent is likely to disagree, argues that the reaction of the press and of some AKP supporters was quite critical of Erdogan. From the column:

The prime minister’s unfortunate remarks served as a litmus test that brought to surface the change in Turkey. All media organizations reported his remarks along with interviews with Armenians. All human rights associations condemned Erdoğan, and perhaps as a more important indication, Muslim readers sent messages protesting or criticizing him. This incident indicates once again the risks before the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Today, the AK Party does not face serious competition in the political spectrum, but its supporting demographic are freeing themselves more quickly from the party.

And, on the issue of formerly Armenian property:

If, in addition to this policy of denial, Turkey shows extraordinary resistance to returning the properties that belonged to the foundations of non-Muslim minorities, this possibility of attaching the “genocide” label to the incidents will increase further. This is because the story of 1915 and its aftermath is not only one of the people who were displaced or killed, but also one of a community whose cultural assets and properties were usurped. Turkey not only refuses to carry the burden of the dead people, but also continues to hold a handful of their properties as spoils. This inevitably adds credence to the genocide-still-continues discourse.

UPDATE I (4/2) -- Erdogan announced that Tan will be returning to Washington next week. The primme minister also confirmed plans to attend a summit on nuclear proliferation to be held April 12-13.

The Resolution Saga Continues, Erdogan Points to "Jewish Lobby"

Prime Minister Erdogan said today that Ankara has no plans to send Turkish Ambasador to the United States Namik Tan back to Washington until it receives a clear signal that the resolution is dead. On Friday, the Obama Administration announced that it had reached a deal with American congressional leaders that would stop the resolution in its tracks. However, for Ankara, this is apparently not enough. Upon Tan's return this week, the government continued to issue strong rhetoric, for which there is no doubt a public demand. Fighting "genocide" resolutions is one of the few things that pulls otherwise polarized Turkish politicans together. Suat Kiniklioglu, the AKP's deputy chairman for external affairs, threatened major consequences" should the resolution pass the full United States House of Representatives.

Provocatively, the prime minister pointed his finger at Washington's Israel lobby. (Hurriyet Daily News refers to the Israel lobby as the "Jewish lobby," a term the prime minister also presumably used, but which is inaccurate.) Erdogan said the attitude of Israel lobbyists had changed. While this is indeed the case, it is not accurate to say the Israel lobby "supported" the resolution; rather, they did nothing to stop it, in some cases possibly giving a greenlight to members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who otherwise might have voted against the resolution (see, for example, the positon of the Anti-Defamation League and the use of the resolution by AIPAC and other organizations to pressure Turkey on its position on Iran and Gaza). From Washington-based journalist Jim Lobe in the Asia Times:

In 2007, the Foreign Affairs committee approved a similar "genocide" resolution. However, it was never referred to the floor of the house due to intense opposition by the administration of president George W Bush backed by the powerful "Israel Lobby", which has frequently intervened in congress on Turkey’s behalf since the late 1980s when Ankara and Israel began building a strategic alliance.

But Israeli-Turkish ties have become increasingly strained in recent years, particularly since Israel's "Cast Lead" military campaign in Gaza, which Erdogan strongly denounced in a heated exchange with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in late January last year, just days after the offensive had ended.

A number of subsequent incidents, most recently the apparently deliberate televised humiliation in January by Israel's deputy foreign minister of Ankara's ambassador in Tel Aviv, have added to the strains.

Indeed, some analysts in the US and in Turkey suggested that the resolution's passage was due as much to the Israel Lobby's failure to oppose it, as to the Obama administration's delay in coming out against it. Several key lawmakers who are considered close to the Lobby, notably Gary Ackerman, Brad Sherman and committee chair Howard Berman, spoke in favor of its approval.

"In the past, the pro-Israel community has lobbied hard against previous attempts to pass similar resolutions, citing warnings from Turkish officials that it could harm the alliance not only with the United States but with Israel ...," noted the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.

"In the last year or so, however, officials of American pro-Israel groups have said that while they will not support new resolutions, they will no longer oppose them, citing Turkey's heightened rhetorical attacks on Israel and a flourishing of outright anti-Semitism the government has done little to stem," it asserted.

And, for a look at the victors of Thursday's vote, see Omer Taspinar's column in Today's Zaman. According to Taspinar, Armenian lobbyists (who want to stay in business) and Azerbaijan (which wants to see no rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia until Nagorno-Karabakh is settled) won significant points Thursday. With the protocols now dead in the water, the resolution is likely to keep coming up, and lobbyists will be there to push for and pull against it. Azerbaijan had already successfully appealed/threatened the Turkish government to tie Nagorno-Karabakh to ratification, and the deal is most certainly imperiled. I would also add Turkish ultra-nationalists and anti-American elements inside Turkey to the list of winners as both groups successfully used the resolution in appeals to their core groups. The Turkish government is claiming the resolution has greatly damaged ratification in Turkey.

For more talk in Washington, see former Ambassador to Turkey Mort Abramowitz's interview with the Center for American Progress' Middle East Progress, especially on the status of the protocols. According to Abramowitz, the Turkish government did not adequately prepare for Azeri opposition, instead hoping something would come from American and Russian efforts to settle Nagorno-Karabakh. For Abramowitz, the "real question is can the Turks move forward without doing something for the Azeris?" For my analysis of the Turkey-Armenia-Azerbaijan triangle, which the protocols should have done more to take into account from the beginning, see Jan. 24 post.

The Morning After

Newly-appointed Turkish Ambassador to the United States Namik Tan
PHOTO from Hurriyet Daily News

Though with less of a majority than expected, the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday again passed a resolution recognizing the mass deportations organized by the Ottoman Committee for Union and Progrss (CUP) as genocide. By a vote of 23-22, the non-binding resolution now waits to be moved to the House floor for a vote by the entire 435-member body, though it is unclear whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will do so.

For the first time since the protocols stalled, the Obama Administration has expressed its open opposition to the resolution, asking Pelosi, a long-time supporter of Armenian "genocide recognition," not to put the resolution to a House vote. The White House and Department of State's reticence in the past two months has largely been interpreted in Ankara as pressure to ratify the protocols, though the Turkish Foreign Ministry continues to maintain that it will not be pressured and that it is hopeful the resolution will not clear a full House vote. This is what happened in 2000, 2005, and 2007. Despite similarities to past efforts, as April 24 and a floor vote lingers on this particular resolution, other issues will also play a role, including Turkey's position on Iran and its relations with Israel (apparently Israel was not asked to deliver U.S. Jewish organizations this time around). Washington and Ankara are treading treacherous new ground, though the close vote, the renewed opposition from the Administration, and the continued reliance on American air force bases in Turkey make a resolution unlikely this time around. The full House has passed the resolution before -- once in 1975, and another time in 1984.

Following yesterday's vote, Ankara recalled its ambassador to Ankara, sent diplomats to Moscow to seek Russian support, and re-stated its demand that Swiss and American mediators attach a written guarantee to the protocols that the Armenian Constitutional Court's decision will not affect the operation of the rather naively conceived, and still quite vague historical commission between Armenian and Turkish historians the protocols would set up. (From the beginning, the Turks wanted the historical commission to examine the events of 1915 while the Armenians viewed the commission as a means to discuss the ex-poste facto results of what the Armenian state considers genocide. For more on this point, see past posts, including Nigar Goksel's analysis in an interview with the Institue for Policy Studies' Balkans Project.)

For polar views in the United States on the issue, see 60 Minutes' recent broadcast in which the American news magazine speaks with Armenian historians who claim the Nazis used the Armenian genocide as a blueprint for the Shoa, a claim that Yigal Schleifer correctly points out is "even harder for Ankara to swallow." The piece earned a good deal of scorn in the Turkish press and sparked a campaign by Turkish Americans. For American arguments against the resolution, based largely on geo-strategic reasons, see this statement in The Hill authored by members of the Congressional Caucus on Turkey. Defense contractors, anxious not lose business with Turkey, are also opposed to the resolution, as are a large number of military experts concerned with maintaining access to U.S. air bases in Turkey, through which 70 percent of all supplies going into Iraq currently pass. For another view, see American Turkey expert Henri Barkey's op/ed in the Washington Post in which Barkey discusses the problems with politicizing genocide.

For American diplomats, journalists, and scholars of Turkey, and I suspect, of Armenia, navigating countering, complex narratives of the events of 1915 have long been problematic. (For an example, see historian James R. Russell's response to a 2001 piece in the New York Review of Books by former Economist correspondent Christopher de Bellaigue. Bellaigue has a new book, Rebel Land: Among Turkey's Forgotten Peoples, in which he considers the narratives of 1915 as they continue to influence the politics of Turkey.) Although both Turkey and Armenia agree horrible atrocities were committed, the numbers killed, the level of organization by the Ottoman State, and the intent of the mass deportations that led to the massacre of thousands on thousands of Armenians are in dispute, and not only between Turks and Armenians, but among Turks themselves. Neither citizenry is monolithic, though competing narratives are very much entrenched in the politics of both countries, and in Armenia's case, in its construction as a nation-state. Apart from basic questions about geoolitics and the U.S.-Turkey relationship, a critical question the U.S. Congress must ask is whether a resolution labeling 1915 "genocide," notwithstanding its historical and legal validity, will help Turks and Armenians come to terms with history and move forward for the mutual benefit of Turks and Armenians. The answer here seems clear, though it seems to matter little in Washington, where nuance is too often forsaken for lobby-driven politics.


UPDATE I (3/5) -- Ambassador Tan is on his way back to Ankara. And, for another perspective, see Stephen Kinzer's op/ed in The Guardian.

UPDATE II (3/6) -- The Washington Post is quoting an anonymous U.S. official saying that the Obama Administration and House leaders have reached an agreement that Thursday's resolution will not reach the House floor, consigning it to the fate of past resolutions that cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

"April 24" Approaches . . .

With the Turkey-Armenia protocols now deadlocked, Washington is applying pressure on the Turkish government to move forward with ratification despite the Turkish government's recalcitrance and diffuse public opposition. On February 4, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg to Yerevan to meet with Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian, and then onto Munich to meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The signing of the Protocols in October, with plenty of last mnute wrangling by Secretary Clinton, have been played up as a political success by the Obama Administration, and the United States most certainly does not want to see the deal fall through. Hovering above the pressure is April 24, the day on which Armenian community memorializes the onslaught of the 1915 massacres, which it defines as "genocide." The Armenian diaspora in the United States have long lobbied the United States government to "re-affirm" the Armenian massacres as "genocide," but an American president has yet to apply the definition. Perennial efforts to secure a U.S. House resolution labelling the massacres as "genocide" are also underway.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee is set to consider this year's "genocide resolution" on March 4, and the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), the chief group lobbying for the resolution, is optimistic. According to many Washington observers, President Obama and the State Department seem to have given the green light to the House committee in hopes that it would apply pressure on the Turkish government to move forward with ratification. And, there are reasons why the resolution might be successful this year. The Israel lobby, which has long opposed the resolution on the grounds that it would damage Turkey's alliance with Israel and the United States, has expressed ambivalence about its passage, no doubt largely a pressure move and no doubt a means of punishing Turkey for its criticism of Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories. Mehmet Ali Birand also cites doubts about Erdogan. Additionally, with the death of Rep. John Murtha, Turkey has lost a valuable ally in the U.S. Congress. Yet, Turkey does have leverage thanks to its influence on Iran and position at the UN Security Council, where the United States is seeking a strong resolution on Iran's nuclear weapons program. This is all par for the course in Washington politics, and it is unclear just what will happen with the resolution as a result.

If President Obama or Secretary Clinton think they will successfully pressure Turkey via the genocide reslution, they are most likely mistaken. By the same token, Turkey cannot be so sure a resolution will not pass. The extremely powerful American-Israel Public Affairs Committee has hinted Turkey can turn it all around, and if so, just what will the Turkish government be willing to concede? Former congressional ally to Turkey, Robert Wexler, speaking at an event organized by SETA-DC, urged Turkey to be one step ahead of the game -- just what is this step?

. . . . . .

Turning away from Washington to assess why the protocols have failed so miserably, Today's Zaman columnist Andrew Finkel responds to the recent "Zero Progress" headline in an Economist article about Turkey's rapprochement with Armenia. According to Finkel, the difference between the Syrian and Armenian rapprochement is that the Turkish government had "the winds of public opinion" at its back in regard to the former. Perhaps it is better for the government to focus on building support for intiatives in the public before embarking on them, and just what does Finkel's column say about the low level of Turkish support for the European Union accession process at the moment? Leadership appears to be more than signing accords and devising grand-scale architectures for foreign policy initiatives.

In other Armenia-related news, the clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh appear to be increasing.


UPDATE I (2/25) -- The Armenian parliament has passed a law allowing President Sarkisian to remove his signature from the protocols, as well as to suspend the ratification process.

UPDATE II (2/28) -- A delegation of Turkey-U.S. Interparliamentary Friendship Caucus led by Suat Kiniklioglu will hold meetings in the United States between February 28 and March 6. The House Foreign Affairs Committee vote is this Thursday, and there are still no signs of opposition from the Obama Administration.


CORRECTION (3/6)-- President Reagan applied the word "genocide" in an April 22, 1982, address memorializing the Holocaust and victims of past genocides.

Armenia (Continued . . .)

The spat about the Armenian Constitutional Court ruling on the ratification of the Protocols hoped to be signed between Turkey and Armenia continues with no end in sight. Since the court decision, Turkey has seemed to focus its argumentative energy on the historical commision the Protocols would establish. While it was unclear from the beginning just what such a commission would look like, the Turkish government claims that the Armenian Constitutional Court's reference to a specific article of the Armenian Declaration of Independence hinders the implications of the Protocols. The article in question reads that Armenia will not retreat from its position that the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 constituted a genocide.

However, long before the Armenian Constitutional Court decision, Turkey had tried to link the Protocols to settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Prime Minister Erdogan explicitly linking the two matters when he met with President Obama in Washington in December. While some analysts maintain that Turkey is merely looking for a way to get out of the Protocols, especially following the angry response from Azerbaijan, Turkish diplomats continue to reiterate their support for the process and have asked Swiss mediators, as well as the United States, to provide written assurance that the Armenian Constitutional Court's decision will not place impediments on the proposed historical commission to discuss what happened in 1915. So far, Switzerland and the United States have said they have no intention to do so, and that the Armenian court decision in no way impedes implementation of the Protocols. The United States, in particular, has lauded the Armenian Constitutional Court decision for moving the process forward, characterizing Turkey's responses as "exaggerated." Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has been trying to persuade Washington otherwise, so far holding talks with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State James Seteinberg, National Security Advisor James Jones, and Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Turkish government has expressed that it feels pressured by the United States, and these accusations of undue meddling only increased with news that the House Foreign Affairs Committee is set to take up consideration of yet another resolution calling for President Obama to recognize 1915 as a genocide. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman said the committee will consider the resolution in early March, in time for it to moved to the House floor for a vote before April 15, the day on which the start of the massacres is memorialized and on which Obama will or will not name the event a "genocide."

Armenian President Serge Sarkisian called on Turkey last week to expedite the ratification process, asking President Gul to help overcome the opposition and clear the way for a vote by the Turkish Parliament. Prime Minister Erdogan, who commands a majority in Parliament, has not moved to put the issue forward; meanwhile, Armenia has threatened to annul the process should Turkey not move forward. Pressure from the Armenian opposition will only increase as April 24 approaches, and though Sarkisian has a solid majority in the Armenian parliament, he is in a much less tenable political position than Erdogan. Armenian opposition figures are insisting that the Protocols are merely an excuse for President Obama to yet again refrain from calling 1915 a "genocide," and that the Protocols are a diplomatic convenience for the United States president to eschew the genocide issue. The Armenian parliament is also preparing legislation to allow the president to remove his signature from international treaties.

There is also plenty of pressuring from Azerbaijan. Azeri Ilham President Aliyev has expressed his confidence that Turkey would not ratify the treaty without the Nagorno-Karabakh link. Aliyev has repeated old threats that he could direct gas away from Turkey and toward Russia, which has promised to buy as much gas from Azerbaijan as it can supply. Meanwhile, Armenia played up its ties with Iran this week, concluding deals to build a transnational railway and energy facilities with the Iranians, a move speculated to strengthen Armenia's hand and pressure the United States not to call on Armenia to make additional concessions.

Things Fall Apart

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu in Zurich in October. PHOTO from Hürriyet

As the chances for ratification of two protocols signed between Turkey and Armenia crumble, the future of the rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia looks quite dim. The protocols were signed it Zurich in October, where both countries agreed to normalize diplomatic and bilateral relations, including opening the border and setting up numerous subcommissions, the most important of which would look at the "historical dimensions" betweent the two countries. However, Turkey has since made Turkish ratification contingent upon resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict despite making it clear in Zurich that ratification of the protocols would not be contingent on settling the rather intractable conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Prime Minister Erdogan has also stated that Armenia should remove its troops from the 13 percent of the territory it occupies inside Azerbaijan before borders are opened.

Nagorno-Karabakh

Turkey's position changed as its relations with Azerbaijan grew increasingly endangered after Zurich. Azerbaijan fears Turkey will sell it out on Nagorno-Karabakh, and opposes any Turkish rapprochement with Armenia before the conflict between it and Armenia is resolved. Armenians in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan revolted in 1993 with the assistance of Armenia, shortly after which Armenia essentially occupied. Following Armenia's invasion, Ankara broke off diplomatic relations with Yerevan and sealed the border. In addition to Armenia's campaign for genocide recognition, Nagorno-Karabakh has long been at the heart of tensions between it and Turkey.

Tensions with Azerbaijan had been high since the Turkey-Armenia rapprochement commenced in fall 2008, reaching a boiling point soon Zurich when President Gul appeared alongside Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan at a football game in Bursa. For public relations purposes, Turkish fans were prevented from entering the stadium with Azeri flags to protest the recent accords. Images of Turkish soldiers confiscating the flags in a none too delicate manner were aired on Azeri television, and a diplomatic splat soon blew up between Turkey and Azerbaijan, long considered "two states, but one nation." Soon after, Azerbaijan removad Turkish flags at a monument honoring Turkish soldiers who had died in Azerbaijan's 1918 independence war. In addition to fears surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan resents the price it receives for the natural gas sold to Turkey. The two countries remain in protracted negotiations over the issue.

The Turks are not without fears of their own. They fear increased ties between Russia and Azerbaijan, which include a recently signed major energy agreement providing or the sale of Azeri gas to Russia. Turkey needs Azeri gas in order to complete its plans for the Nabucco pipeline, and the more gas sold to Russia means the less gas for Turkey. Even worse would be a pipelines connecting Azeri gas to Russian supply routes, which Azerbaijan has used well to help terrify Turkey into submission. Russia has not proved instrumental to the peace process to the extent that it has done little to quell these fears, signing the energy accord in the heat of Turkey-Azerbaijan tensions.

All of this has led Turkey to look for the fastest exit route. Having introduced the Protcols to Parliament, Erdogan has declared his part done. Though Turkey stated at Zurich it could not guarantee ratification, the new conditions make it virtually impossible. Also important to note, Erdogan's ruling AKP controls a majority that could easily pave the way for ratification should the government be so

Fighting Over History

At the same time, Turkey and Armenia have very different visions of what a historical commission would look like: the Turks see it as an opportunity to open up discussion on the killing and insert more context into a debate of historical events that for many Armenians is shortly and simply understood as a state-planned campaign to exterminate them; meanwhile, the Armenians envision the commission as discussing relations post-1915. Concerns that discussion in such a commission would compromise the Armenian government's campaign for international recognition of the 1915 killings as genocide -- and, just as importantly, that of the Armenian diaspora -- have led to massive nationalist opposition in Armenia -- in which President Sargsyan's ruling party is less well-positioned than his Turkish counterpart. The nationalist opposition to the protocols has been tremendous, and drawn protests from the diaspora cross the world, most significantly in the United States.

Also disputed is the Turkish-Armenian border, premised on the 1921 Treaty of Kars. Armenian nationalists do not accept and bitterly resent the treaty, which was signed under pressure from the Russian government; the Armenian government, for its part, has never explicitly recognized the border.

Decision Time in Armenia

Turkey's exit strategy came on Jan. 13 when Armenia's Constitutional Court heard a challenge to the constitutionality of the protocols. While the Court affirmed them as legal, it seemed to place two important conditions on their implementation. The first of these involved the historical commission, which the Court ruled must not contradict Armenia's Declaration of Independence, which states that Armenia remain committed to its international genocide recognition campaign. The second involves a part of the Court's opinion that declares relations between the two countries must remain solely bilateral and not involve a third party. This would rule out Turkey's post-agreement demand that Nagorno-Karabakh be made part of the process.

Turkish nationalist opposition turned the court decision into political fodder. Soon after the Constitutional Court decision, the Turkish Ministry issued a statement declaring the conditions it establishes unacceptable. Perhaps more damaging is the Foreign Ministry's declaration of its sincerity as opposed to that of Armenia, Erdogan declaring that Turkey did not put the Protocols before its Constitutional Court. However, Erdogan clearly ignored that the Armenian government in power was not responsible for the constitutional challenge. Turkey, on the other hand, had said the protocols would not be conditional on Nagorno-Karabakh.

As of now, the future of the protocols appear dead in the water. Turkish experts have talked about trying to get Russia to pressure the Armenians, but as the International Crisis Group's Sabine Frazier lays out, the ball seems in Turkey's court. Should Armenia play its cards right, it could still pass the Protocols regardless of the conditions placed on them by its Constitutional Court. Since no specifics on the historical commission were ever determined and Nagorno-Karabakh intentionally not addressed, it will be hard for Turkey to cry foul, instead looking like the recalcitrant one at the end of the day. Such an appearance would make Turkey the diplomatic loser of a peace process some international observers could well say Turkish leaders were never serious about to begin with. Given that Turkey's problems with Azerbaijan are significant, and not unforeseeable, the real question seems to be why the Turkish government even initiated the process.

For a wonderful analysis of the issues at the heart of the Turkey-Armenia rapprochement, including the benefits for both countries, see the Balkans Project's excellent October interview with Nigar Goksel. Goksel also had an excellent interview with the Armenian Reporter in June where she elucidates conflict resoluton efforts at the societal level. For a more comprehensive history of the conflcit as it stood before the August and October agreements, see also the International Crisis Group's April 2009 briefing of Turkey-Armenia relations. And, not to overwhelm with links, but for a commentary by a Turk who is supportive of the process, but critical of Erdogan's charges of Armenian insincerity, see Milliyet columnist Semih Idiz's recent column.


UPDATE I (1/27) -- Responding to the Armenian Constitutional Court's decision, U.S Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon averred that the Court's decision does not place conditions on the Protocols as asserted by Prime Minister Erdogan and the Turkish Foreign Ministry. In a clarification of Gordon's remarks, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley echoed Gordon's remarks, confirming they were on the record and that the United States views the Court's decision as an advancement of Armenia's ratification of the Protocols, which will now be submitted to the Armenian Parliament for a vote.

The United States and the Armenian Question

Protesters in Ankara hols a banner reading, "The Armenian genocide is an international lie." PHOTO from Today's Zaman

April 24, the day on which the Armenian diaspora memorializes the 1915 massacre of its ancestors, will provide a critical litmus test for just how Obama will approach the Armenian question. Traditionally, U.S. presidents have commemorated the day with speeches and a short letter to the Armenian-American community, artfully finding ways to express solidarity with the Armenian community while eschewing recognition of the massacres as "genocide." With the Armenian vote in mind, Barack Obama promised in January 2008 to not dance around the word "genocide." The Armenian National Committee of America's endorsement at his back, President Obama now has less than three months left to decide whether this campaign promise will be among the first broken. (President Bush broke his promise in 2000, so such a move would not be without precedent.) In pledging to "recognize the Armenian genocide," Obama stands alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, all of whom have made similar commitments to ANCA and the Armenian community.

The Armenian diaspora in America has long lobbied the U.S. Congress to pass legislation enshrining the genocide label in U.S. law. And, they have come close to succeeding. In October 2007, H.R. 106 won approval in the House Foreign Affairs Committee only to be defeated at the behest of President Bush and defense-oriented politicians worried the legislation might undermine the war in Iraq. Co-sponsors of the bill like Rep. John Murtha reversed their position in the face of extreme diplomatic and lobbying pressure from Turkey, which removed its ambassador and spent huge sums on lobbying fees. A similar resolution met the same demise in October 2000 when it was squashed by President Clinton under the same pressures.

The systematic 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces resulted in an Armenian diaspora that has since long worked to have the historical events that resulted in their displacement recognized as genocide by the international community. Since its founding, Turkey has denied the Armenian claims, and the facts of 1915 have been an issue of heated contention since. While progress has been made in terms of studying and understanding just what happened in 1915, history remains largely obfuscated by propaganda produced by both sides. While the Armenian diaspora doggedly continues to lobby governments in the states to which they have relocated, the Turkish state refuses to acknowledge the Ottoman crimes as systematic slaughter, much more "genocide." Ömer Taşpınar writes that Turkish success in resisting Armenian genocide recongition efforts are largely "pyrrhic victories." According to Taşpınar, Turkish victories in the halls of foreign congresses make Turkey look thuggish. When a genocide resolution is introduced, no substantive debate unfolds as to whether the 1915 massacres can actually be considered "genocide." Instead, Turkey expends diplomatic capital -- not to mention huge amounts of money for Washington lobbyists -- to defeat the resolution, its victory the result of its geopolitical importance to the United States rather than the correctness of its argument.

Prime Minister Erdoğan has already warned Obama of genocide acknowledgement, and Foreign Minister Ali Bababcan recently argued that such a move from the United States would undermine progress Armenia and Turkey have made in reconciling past conflicts. In the past, Turkey has successfully managed to throw its strategic importance about so as to effectively rebuff America's sizable Armenian diaspora. However, with Obama seeming intent to keep campaign promises and Turkey's political clout in Washington significantly weakened in the wake of Davos, this might just be the year that the Armenia diaspora succeeds in getting that which it has for so long pushed and prodded. Israeli and Jewish-American lobbying groups in the United States have long supported Turkey against past efforts by the Armenian community, but Davos has given America's powerful Israeli lobby reason to withdraw this backing.

Despite the increased strength of the Armenian position, the Obama Administration is ultimately in the driver's seat. If Obama stops short of recognizing the 1915 massacres as genocide come April 24 and convinces Congress to keep H.R. 106 off the table, recent rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia might defuse the issue once and for all. Turkey broke off diplomatic conflict with Armenia in 1993, soon after Armenia became independent from the Soviet Union and following its invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, secret talks between both states commenced in July, and in Septemeber, Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian extended an invitation to President Gül to watch the Turkish team play Armenia in Yerevan. Despite plenty of opposition, Gül accepted the invitation and briefly opened its border with Armenia. Since then, the two states have made real efforts to establish good relations.

At the same time, considerable movement has occurred inside Turkey to recognize the massacres of 1915 as a genocide, and at the very least, come to some more conciliatory diplomatic settling of the dispute. If Armenia and Turkey could come to some satisfactory resolution about 1915, then future attempts by the Armenian diaspora would be significantly weakened and the potentially derailing impact of the issue on U.S.-Turkey relations eliminated. Evidencing the potential for these steps in positive relations is the recent response of Armenian intellectuals to a petition organized by Turkish intellectuals in December and since signed by thousands of Turkish citizens. Although the Turkish petition did not use the word "genocide," referring instead to the 1915 massacres as "the Great Catastrophe," it was an important and hard-fought first step. Reciprocally, the Armenian petition apologizes for the killing of Turks by Armenians. The Armenian response should bolster support for moves to acknowledge the killings.

UPDATE 2/9 -- The Armenian petition referenced above has been aborted. Dr. Armen Gavakian from the Macquarie University in Sydney, inspired by a Turkish initiative, decided last month to launch a campaign to apologize to Turks for murders committed by the Asala organization in the 1980s. Gakavian, however, retracted the campaign over fierce criticism from Armenian diaspora, Hürriyet wrote. For full article, click here.

Soccer Diplomacy Success

To follow up on my Sept. 1 post . . .

From the Eurasia Daily Monitor:

On September 3 Turkish President Abdullah Gul announced that he had accepted an invitation from Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian to attend the soccer match between the two countries in the Armenian capital of Yerevan on September 6 as part of the qualifying group stages for the 2008 World Cup. It will be the first time a Turkish head of state has ever visited Armenia.

The announcement followed weeks of speculation and has proved to be highly controversial inside Turkey. Opposition parties had called on Gul to decline the invitation in protest over Armenian support for the breakaway region of Karabakh in Azerbaijan and the continuing campaign by the Armenian diaspora for the massacres and deportations of ethnic Armenians during the final years of the Ottoman Empire to be recognized as genocide.

For full article, click here.

Working for Soccer Diplomacy

LOGO OF THE YOUNG CIVILIANS: Under a pair of comfortable sneakers reads, "The Young Civilians Are Not Comfortable." The Young Civilians (Genç Siviller), a name the group gave themselves after they staged a protest against Turkey's annual Youth and Sports Day, an event in which schoolchildren in sports uniforms march diligently in school stadiums across the country. The group objected to what it considered to be the festivities' dreary Stalin-like order. The neo-nationalist daily Cumhuriyet reacted to the protest with a headline that read, "Young Officers Express Concern." The group retorted online with an aptly titled counter-statement: "The Young Civilians Are Uncomfortable."

Doing what they do best, the Young Civilians are in the middle of an innovative campaign to encourage President Gül to accept the invitation of Armenian President Serge Sarkisian to attend the first international football match to be played between the two countries—a match to be played Sept. 6 that will qualify one team or the other for the FIFA World Cup. Armenia has said that it will open up its borders from Sept. 1 to Sept. 6 to allow Turkish citizens to travel to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia where the game will be played (see Aug. 16 post). For their part, and in addition to raising pressure on Gül to accept Sakisian's invitation, the Young Civilians are encouraging Turkish citizens to take advantage of the historic opportunity and travel to Yerevan. The border has been closed since 1994 following Armenian support an armed insurrection by ethnic Armenians in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, a close Turkish ally. Gül has still not decided whether he will attend the match.

On my last day in İstanbul, I had the opportunity to talk with Pınar Akpınar, the Young Civilian leading up this latest campaign of the Civilians. Akpinar's resolve to make a difference in the foreign relations between both countries was not only inspiring in its own right, but more so in that it fits within the Civilians' larger agenda of sparking political dialogue. According to Akpinar, for the Civilians, no progress can me made without first having people talk to one another in spite of their differences. This not only includes progress toward ending the current standoff between Turkey and Armenia, but most especially in Turkey's larger struggle for democracy. Long intrigued by the Civilians who claim "politics as existential," what most struck me about the stated objective of the organization was the non-ideological nature of its end-goal. Rather than a capitalist, socialist, secularist, or Islamist society, the Civilians are first and foremost concerned with "democracy," and democracy for the group means better democratic practice. More than free elections, democracy means freedoms of expression and assembly, in addition to freedoms to a broad education centered on the development of the individual and multiple opportunities to meaningfully participate in the process. To drive home their message of democracy being a process versus an end, the Civilians are open about not knowing exactly sure where Turkey's democratic project will end up—rather, like relations between Turkey and Armenia, what is important is that it gets a good start.

For more on the Young Civilians, see April 9 post.