Do the Protocols Bridge any Divides? The Turkey-Armenia Agreement

In a BBC radio interview on Sunday Sequence last week, I was asked for an assessment on the geopolitical as much as human impact of the recent agreement between Turkey and Armenia, and whether the signing of the two protocols will lead - at least on paper - to a normalisation of relations between these two unfriendly neighbours or at least open the common border that has been closed off unilaterally by Turkey since 1993.

What could I tell the programme presenter that I had not already incorporated into my Open Letter of 6th October to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan? Were those issues not also adequately covered in the open letters, statements, analyses and opinions of many organisations and individuals alike? Had the Armenian National Committee of Canada, for instance, not dissected in five key points the two protocols and concluded that they were deeply flawed in nature? What about the writings of Raffi K Hovannisian and Vartan Oskanian, two seasoned politicians and former government ministers in Armenia? Had Hovannisian not asserted in his Protocols and Preconditions of 12th October that “in this millennial series of misfortunes”, the Armenian nation had never yet invited such destruction upon itself? Had Oskanian not also concluded on 14th October that “normalisation of Armenia-Turkey relations, as an idea even, has been discredited” and that it “has thus begun with the capitulation of the Armenian side”? But perhaps a most telling - and in its own right a most powerful - articulation was the short but incisive 8th October open letter to the Turkish and Armenian leaders by Professor William Schabas, an Irish-Canadian law professor, and president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, who expressed the wariness of the IAGS “of any call for allegedly impartial research into what are clearly established historical facts” and added that “acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide must be the starting point of any ‘impartial historical commission’ and not one of its possible conclusions”.

In the final analysis, I believe this fragile agreement that was shrouded in mystery till the eleventh hour is more a marriage of convenience imposed upon two South Caucasian neighbours by outside matchmakers than a real desire for reconciliation between them. It is certainly not a case of Armenia and Turkey wishing to establish good - in the classical sense of co-equal - neighbourly relations, but rather one of geopolitical realities being dictated upon them. If the real purpose of the exercise were to reach reconciliation, then the truth should not have been shunned so maladroitly by both sides. Let me take just three examples to mark the distinction between expediency, reconciliation and truth in international relations. In the case of the Jewish Holocaust, which is genocide by another name, did Germany not recognise its heinous crimes and make good upon this chapter in its history during WWII? After all, it did not create a historical sub-commission to examine established facts, but rather recognised its crimes and made reparations for them. And if I were to look further at South Africa, with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission 1995, or perhaps even closer to home in Northern Ireland with the Good Friday / Belfast Agreement 1998, where erstwhile historical enemies worked together and admitted their mistakes, surely the paradox with the latest Turkey-Armenia agreement becomes even more self-evident in both its simplicity and duplicity. The simplicity is that the establishment of diplomatic relations between any two countries would require a mere - and familiar - template that is used universally and not two protocols with preconditions, commissions or omissions! The duplicity, on the other hand, is that such an agreement cannot be heralded as reconciliation when it brazenly obfuscates the truth and strays quite far from it. Indeed, by listening to President Sargsyan’s address last week when he placed the protocols in the context of Armenian rights and interests, not only did he fail to convince me with his arguments but in fact succeeded to underline why Armenia in the person of its foreign minister should not have signed the agreement as it stands today.

But the fact remains that those protocols have been signed in a rather self-conscious ceremony in Zürich that housed a smiling Turkish foreign minister, a less-than-smiling Armenian foreign minister, the clapping presence of the American, French and Russian foreign ministers as OSCE Minsk Group co-chair representatives, the EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Swiss host. Mind you, Turkey had every right to be smiling, as it avoided a last-minute glitch and deftly managed to pull off a political rabbit from its Ottoman fez. What now remains to be seen is whether the respective Turkish and Armenian parliaments will ratify this agreement in toto since they do not enjoy the right to amend or alter it, whether the border will eventually be opened so that Armenia acquires at long last an access to the sea, and whether the putative economic gains - a moot point for me actually - will filter down to the ordinary and needy people in Armenia. After all, I would suggest that an open border is at the very least as beneficial to Turkey as it is to Armenia since the former can trade in the Armenian market with cheap Turkish products, let alone invest in the country or even acquire Armenian national assets.

But in the scroll of winners and losers from those two Turkey-Armenia protocols, it is almost a non-sequitur to argue that Turkey has largely neutralised Armenian efforts at lobbying for recognition of the genocide, found a market for its goods and also appeared to be a statesmanlike peace-builder which would earn it a few brownie points with the EU just in case its accession hopes are revalidated later. And while many people would also talk of the USA and the EU in terms of win-win or win-lose situations, what still surprises me is the eerie absence in the documents and commentaries coming out of politicians and pundits to date of the fact that the Russian Federation is another major benefactor of this agreement. This is why I would suggest that it will have exercised ample “friendly pressure” upon its ally Armenia to sign those two protocols. Following the Russian-Georgian war, and the new geopolitical shifts in the whole region, this agreement would not only facilitate its policies on oil and gas supplies and the route of its pipelines, it would also strengthen its influence in the region as well as wean oil-rich Azerbaijan just a tad away from Turkey and into its sphere of influence - as has been manifested by the successive visits to Baku by Russian political leaders.

Another crucial issue looming very much in the background of this agreement is the conflict in Nagorny-Karabagh. Again, as I wrote recently in my Open Letter, I remain quite convinced that Turkey will now use its “gains” from those protocols as a trump card to counter the “stalemate” in this conflict by coercing Armenia to settle with Azerbaijan. In fact, there is already some talk in the political corridors of the OSCE Minsk Group of a possible breakthrough between Armenia and Azerbaijan over a framework agreement on basic principles that was initially outlined in 2005. In fact, and in view of the surprise element of the two protocols when the Diaspora was for all intents and purposes ambushed by them without prior consultation, there is now mounting concern that Armenia would again be pressured to give up the occupied territories (which it should do eventually anyway) in exchange for mere promises of security (which it should certainly not accept on its own minus any concrete return). Yet, this breakthrough looks rather premature to me, more so in view of the increased frequency in armed skirmishes between both sides. However, once the negotiations - and concomitant pressures - become more critical over self-determination, or about an Armenian pullout or even over the corridor linking Armenia to Nagorny-Karabagh, I hope the Armenian politicians and their mandarins will be more prudent when they discuss the final outcome than what they did with the two protocols signed in Zürich last week.

But let me add a couple of correctives here. Many people today are claiming that this agreement dealt a fatal blow to the issue of recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and that countries from the USA to Israel will no longer have to recognise it since the Armenia government will be “implementing an impartial and scientific examination” over its historical veracity. Much as there is a modicum of truth in this postulation, I would nonetheless add that the issue of recognition will not die away since it remains a Diasporan priority that voters in the USA and elsewhere will continue to lobby for and perhaps even at a higher pitch - irrespective of any political protocols between Turkey and Armenia. So I would suggest that President Obama has not been let off the hook, as Armenian-American voters and their supporters will ensure that their demands remain audible. But as a lawyer, let me play the devil’s advocate and refer to an idea I was discussing earlier with the Armenian-British author George Jerjian. Is it remotely possible that this provision in the protocol is solely a smokescreen to help Turkey save face before “accepting” the recommendations of the said commission that genocide occurred in fact? Or is this too wild a theory even by Machiavellian standards?

In the final analysis, one regrettable collateral damage from those protocols is that scores of ordinary Armenian men and women worldwide who have been hardy supporters of normalisation with Turkey are now being labelled extremists, loudmouths or nationalists simply because they seek an agreement that is credible, equitable, mutually-beneficial and sustainable rather than one that is based on indignity, injustice, disequilibrium and non-sustainability. No amount of football matches in Yerevan (present capital of Armenia) or Bursa (former capital of the Ottoman Empire) could erase from the minds of countless peoples that this agreement lacks adequate moral as much as political probity and that its far-reaching and long-term ramifications are as unsettling as they are unclear.

But how will we Armenians be spared the disturbing fallout of those protocols when there is so much disappointment and some anger, and how will we also ensure that the yawning gap between the Armenian Republic and the Armenian Diaspora does not ricochet dangerously beyond control and arrest our collective future hopes? Will we manage to bridge any of the divides through public diplomacy and people-to-people contacts to ensure real reconciliation?

Therein lies in my opinion the next existential challenge that confronts us all, one that goes even beyond Mount Ararat and genocide, and it should have perhaps been the real question from the BBC presenter to me last Sunday.

Dr Harry Hagopian
Ecumenical, legal & political consultant
London, UK

© hbv-H @ October 2009
www.epektasis.net 

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