Analysis
As Turkey and Armenia inch toward
Summary: When Turkey’s Presi-
dent Abdullah Gül took the plunge
on September 6 and became the
first ever Turkish leader to set foot
in Armenia, few were immune to
the significance of the moment.
Even Turkey’s determinedly frosty
diplomats began to thaw as they
observed their president sitting next
to his Armenian counterpart Serzh
Sargsyan at the World Cup pre-
qualifier football match pitting Turkey
against Armenia.
The groundbreaking trip has raised
expectations that after decades of
mutual hostility Turkey and Armenia
will bury the hatchet, establish for-
mal ties, and re-open their borders.
Hopes of a breakthrough have been
heightened by the conflict in Georgia,
which has refocused regional minds
on the need for peace. Yet, amid all
the euphoria there are worrying signs
that this latest and most serious stab
at reconciliation between Turkey and
Armenia may come to naught.
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reconciliation both sides talk the talk,
but can they walk the walk?
by Amberin Zaman*
ANKARA — When Turkey’s
president, Abdullah Gül, took the
plunge on September 6 and became
the first ever Turkish leader to set
foot in Armenia, few were immune to
the significance of the moment. Even
Turkey’s determinedly frosty diplo-
mats began to thaw as they observed
their president sitting next to his
Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan
(albeit behind bulletproof glass) at
the World Cup pre-qualifier football
match pitting Turkey against Arme-
nia. There were a few hisses and boos
when the Turkish national anthem was
played. But overall the Armenian fans
that filled the stadium were on their
best behavior (even after Turkey won
the match 2-0.)
Gül’s visit followed a bold invitation
from Sargsyan to attend the match.
The groundbreaking trip has raised
expectations that after decades of
mutual hostility Turkey and Armenia
will bury the hatchet, establish formal
ties, and re-open their borders. These
were sealed by Turkey in sympathy
with their Azeri cousins during a
nasty ethnic conflict over the mainly
*
Amberin Zaman has been the Turkey correspondent for The Economist since 1999. She has also been a regular contributor to the
Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Daily Telegraph of London. The views expressed here are those of the author and
do not necessarily represent the views of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF).
Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh en-
clave in Azerbaijan in the early 1990s.
Hopes of a breakthrough have been
heightened by the conflict in Georgia,
which has refocused regional minds
on the need for peace. Yet, amid all
the euphoria there are worrying signs
that this latest and most serious stab
at reconciliation between Turkey and
Armenia may come to naught.
On the face of things, one might
conclude the opposite: After a lengthy
post match session in Yerevan, Ali Ba-
bacan, Turkey’s foreign minister, met
with his Armenian counterpart, Edu-
ard Nalbandian, for a second time in
New York on September 26. They were
meant to be putting the final tweaks
on a series of accords that are to form
the basis for diplomatic ties. A day
later the two ministers came together,
this time with their Azeri colleague,
Elmar Mammadyarov. The tripartite
talks, held on the sidelines of the UN
General Assembly, follow the twin
Turkish initiatives to revive the plod-
ding Karabakh peace process and to
establish a regional alliance grouping
the three Caucasus states together with
Analysis
Turkey and Russia. Yet, even as the ministers were grinning
before the cameras, sources close to the talks voiced gloom
over their outcome. Ominously, Turkish authorities are said
to have blocked a deal to sell Armenian electricity to Turkey
that was signed soon after Gül’s visit. And Turkish officers
were glaringly absent from a joint NATO-led exercise that
started near Yerevan on September 29. Turkey had partici-
pated in a similar exercise that took place in Armenia in 2003.
Is Turkey getting cold feet? Or is it the Armenians who are
beginning to wobble? Either way, it is too early to write off
peace. Unfazed by assorted saboteurs, Messrs. Gül and Sarg-
syan say they are determined to push ahead with a deal, and
there is little reason to doubt their words. Yet, a closer look
at the dynamics underlying this process may help explain
why friendship between Armenia and Turkey remains such
an elusive goal.
The latest set of secret negotiations between Turkey and
Armenia has been underway for nearly a year. There were
good reasons to be hopeful this time round. For one, Turkey
frets that a U.S. Congressional resolution calling the mass
slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915
“genocide” is far more likely to pass should the Democrats
win this November’s U.S. presidential election. This would
trigger a fresh wave of anti-American feelings in Turkey,
where hostility toward the United States remains strong.1
This, in turn, would pile pressure on Turkey’s government
to end vital military cooperation with the United States
on Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a primary reason why the
United States is currently leaning so heavily on Turkey and
Armenia to end their quarrel. If they were to do so, the U.S.
Congressional resolution might be buried for good.
The other reason for Turkey’s newly dovish stance lies in
its ambitions to become a big regional player. The recent
conflict in Georgia offers Turkey an unprecedented chance
to bolster its influence and to help solve the Karabakh
problem, but only if it mends fences with Armenia, the new
thinking goes.2
Turkey’s reasoning sounds perfectly plausible. But it may
be overplaying its hand as Turkey pushes Armenia to shelve
1
See, Transatlantic Trends, Key Finding Report 2008, http://www.transatlantictrends.org.
2
Zaman, Amberin, “Crisis in the South Caucasus: Turkey’s Big Moment,” On Turkey series (The German
Marshall Fund, September 2008), http://www.gmfus.org/publications/article.cfm?id=474&parent_
type=P.
2
“Gül and Sargsyan say they are
determined to push ahead with a
deal, and there is little reason to
doubt their words. ”
support for its Diaspora campaign, a campaign that calls
for international recognition of the genocide, and allows
a commission of historians from both countries probe the
events of 1915 instead. Turkish negotiators are said to want
to link progress in relations (by establishing diplomatic
links and opening the border) to the findings of the pro-
posed “historical commission.” In other words, they almost
seem to want Armenia to reverse its position that the mass
killings of their Ottoman kin amounted to genocide. If so,
the talks are doomed.
Unnerved by President Sargsyan’s decision to go along with
the historical commission, hawks within the Diaspora are
said to be cranking up pressure on Armenia to walk away
from the talks. It is unthinkable that any Armenian leader,
no matter how desperate for an economic lifeline through
Turkey, would ever question that genocide occurred. It is
more than political suicide. It’s about an ineffaceable wound
that binds Armenians across the globe and gives them a
common identity.
Unlike his hawkish predecessor Robert Kocharian, who
put genocide recognition at the center of his foreign policy,
Sargsyan is staking his political career on reconciliation with
Turkey. “Serzh has taken a big and unwise risk,” declared his
chief political rival Levon Ter-Petrossian, during a recent
interview. Turkey must not shift the burden of its own lack
of historical reckoning with the Ottomans’ darker deeds to
Sargsyan. Yet, nor should the Diaspora expect Armenia to
mortgage its future to the settling of historical scores.
Analysis

Turkey and Armenia’s leaders should be emboldened by

the flurry of warm feelings triggered by Gül’s visit among Amberin Zaman, Correspondent, The Economist
their respective peoples. And all sides might take heart from
the burgeoning debate in Turkey about the events of 1915. Amberin Zaman has been the Turkey correspondent for The Economist
In some ways it mirrors the heated and remarkably frank since 1999. She has also been a regular contributor to the Washington
exchanges about the killings that took place in the Ottoman Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Daily Telegraph of London.
Parliament in 1918.3 When Volkan Vural, a high profile
About GMF
former Turkish diplomat, suggested recently that Turkey
should apologize to the Armenians, and offer compensation
The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a
and even citizenship for those who were expelled, he was
nonpartisan American public policy and grantmaking institution
repeating calls by his countrymen made nearly a century ago.
dedicated to promoting greater cooperation and understanding
between North America and Europe. GMF does this by supporting
Meanwhile, throwing Karabakh back into the mix may
individuals and institutions working on transatlantic issues, by
prove just as fatal. There is talk about Armenia agreeing
convening leaders to discuss the most pressing transatlantic themes,
to return a speck of land within the Azeri territories that
and by examining ways in which transatlantic cooperation can
it occupied in addition to Karabakh. Yet, both Azerbaijan
address a variety of global policy challenges. In addition, GMF
and Armenia have made clear that they want to settle their
supports a number of initiatives to strengthen democracies. Founded
differences within the framework of the ongoing, though
in 1972 through a gift from Germany, on the 25th anniversary of the
admittedly snail-paced, Minsk Group talks led by Russia,
Marshall Plan, as a permanent memorial to Marshall Plan assistance,
France, and the United States.
GMF maintains a strong presence on both sides of the Atlantic. In
addition to its headquarters in Washington, DC, GMF has seven
Indeed, Foreign Minister Babacan’s joint talks with his
offices in Europe: Berlin, Bratislava, Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Ankara,
Armenian and Azeri counterparts in New York may have
and Bucharest.
been no more than a photo-op calculated to arm Azerbai-
jan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, against the opposition in the
run-up to the October 15 presidential polls. Once these
are out of the way, optimists opine, Turkey will be free to
establish formal ties with Armenia. Most pundits agree that
there has to be an “all or nothing” deal between Turkey and
Armenia. Diplomatic relations alone are not a big enough
prize for Armenia. They need to be accompanied by a re-
opening of either rail links or land borders. The exchange of
goods and people that would ensue is the best guarantee of
sustainable peace that would have a ripple effect throughout
the South Caucasus.

The United States must intensify pressure on both sides

to finalize a deal in the coming weeks. Otherwise critical
momentum may be lost, and the saboteurs may prevail. As
President Gül recently warned, a similar opportunity for
peace “may not come again for another 15 or 20 years.”

3
Aktar, Ayhan “Debating the Armenian Massacres in the Last Ottoman Parliament November-December
1918,” History Workshop Journal, No. 64, Autumn 2007, pp. 240-270.