Sergey Markedonov: Nadezhda protocols

On October 10, 2009, in the Swiss Zurich, representatives of Armenia and Turkey signed two fundamentally important document for these neighboring countries “Protocol on the development of bilateral relations” and “Protocol on the establishment of diplomatic relations”. Does this mean the end of a long -term confrontation, which assumes a closed land border, diplomatic demarches, “ideological wars” of historians from politics and politicians from history - and the beginning of a new stage of bilateral relations?

On the one hand, the value of two documents should not be overestimated. First of all, because we know many examples (including from recent history), when even a rewarding of supporters of the compromise by Nobel Prizes does not guarantee a peaceful process from stagnation and even degradation. The most striking example of this is the situation in the Middle East, where new local conflicts with new elements were replaced by “Oslo’s spirit” (sharp activation of Iran in intermediary wars against Israel, the anti -Israeli alliance of the Shiite state and the Sunni military -political group (Hamas), a split within the Palestinian movement). A less well -known example is Cyprus, where after high expectations from the possible implementation of the so -called The “Annan Plan” (a referendum in two parts of the divided island about the unification in April 2004), a four -year “stagnation” in the negotiations came. But even after the resumption of the negotiation process, significant improvements were not recorded. Moreover, in the parliamentary elections in the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (April 19, 2009), nationalists from the right party of national unity won, while receiving a little more than 44% of the vote. Note that, unlike the Middle East, the Cyprus conflict is a “frozen” confrontation within the European Union (because the Republic of Cyprus recognized by the world community joined the EU in 2004).

Do not discount the fact that the procedure for adopting documents for execution has not yet been completed. The parliaments of the two states have a ratification procedure. And if the Armenia parliament, controlled by the Party of Power (Republicans) and its allies on the government coalition (“prosperous Armenia”, “Orinats Erkir”), most likely support the efforts of President Serzh Sargsyan and his team, then Turkish deputies can organize a strict discussion. For this, they have their own grounds-such as the lack of mention of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as well as the need for progress in resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in protocol texts. In the end, in the process of Armenian -Turkish rapprochement there is another “shadow player” - Azerbaijan, who is losing a lot because his main strategic ally will build qualitatively new relations with the dynamics of the Karabakh conflict and the entire complex of relations between the two former republics of the Soviet Transcaucasia. In Turkey itself, the role of defenders of Azerbaijani affair is quite significant to try to influence the course of the peace process. On the eve of the signing of protocols in Zurich, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Turkish government, Jamil Chichik, emphasized the strategic importance of Azerbaijani-Turkish relations: “This is not just relations based on common interests. For Turkey, there is nothing more important than friendship with Azerbaijan. ”

The situation within Armenia should not be idealized. In the parliament of the Sargsyan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the republic, the "Heritage" faction and the oldest Armenian party "Dashnaktsutyun" (it was the ruling party in the first independent Armenia of 1918-1920) is strictly opposed. But the main challenge of the current government is not a parliamentary opposition, but a conglomerate of an extra -parliamentary opposition, united in the framework of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), led by the charismatic leader, the first president of Armenia Levon Ter -Petrosyan. Ter -Petrosyan is a brilliant speaker, a polemicist who has experience in confrontation between power on the streets (he acquired it during the time of perestroika, conducting the struggle for the self -determination of the Armenians of the Nagorno -Karabakh). At the same time, Dashnaks claim the “historical brand”, to the role of peculiar keepers of the “Armenian tradition”. The leader of the ANC is trying to position himself as the founding father and keeper of the values ​​of the “third republic”, which arose on the wreckage of Soviet Armenia. Hence the extremely negative attitude of the Ter-Petrosyan team to the October tour of Serge Sargsyan at various foreign Armenian communities (“It is necessary to think primarily about the citizens of the Republic of Armenia”). The combination of such different protest potentials in a particular “Turkish point” can also significantly complicate the course of reconciliation of the two states.

On the other hand, the signing of two protocols is not just a significant step forward in the process of reconciliation of Armenia and Turkey. This is an event that is of fundamental importance, if only because the two countries are assuming both political and legal obligations. This is no longer “football diplomacy”, not the exchange of declarations and software articles, and not even a “roadmap”, which gives only an output of the peace process. These are the specific terms of implementation of two protocols laid down in two protocols. So, Ankara and Yerevan in the text of the “Protocol on the development of bilateral relations” “agreed to open a common border within two months after the entry into force of this protocol”. In the “Protocol on the establishment of diplomatic relations”, the parties “ agreed to establish diplomatic relations from the day of signing this protocol in accordance with the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations from 1961, exchange diplomatic missions.” Both protocols enter into force "on the same day - on the first day of the month following the exchange of ratification tools." The creation of a working group under the guidance of two foreign ministers in order to develop mechanisms for the work of the intergovernmental commission (and subcommissions in its composition) is planned two months after the entry into force of the “protocol on the development of bilateral relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Turkish Republic”. Thus, in the conversation of Yerevan and Ankara, not only the tone changes. The language of this conversation is changing. The parties from words turn to the implementation of the plan and signed. Meanwhile, today the Turks argue about Armenia not with the Armenians, but among themselves. The same can be said, about Armenia. All this gives hope that the points recorded in the protocols will begin to be executed. Maybe not on time determined by two documents, but they will begin.

And here we approach, perhaps, to the most important plot of the topic "Armenian-Turkish rapprochement." The signing in Zurich of the two protocols again confirmed the thesis that had already become a truism (from this, however, he does not lose his significance) “never to speak.” Armenian and Turkish diplomats once again proved that former enemies can find common interests and points of contact in the presence of political will. The reconciliation of two historical opponents has more than once took place, and Armenia and Turkey do not open anything fundamentally new here. To date, there is an experience of Greek-Turkish relations, both the Bulgarian-Turkish, Polish-Ukrainian, and Polish-Lithuanian, German-Russian, and the Hungarian-Romanian, not to mention the Israeli-German reconciliation and the transformation of such historical opponents as Germany and France into the nearest allies into the EU. Naturally, we are not talking about reconciliation in the spirit of the Leopold cat. Historical reconciliation should, first of all, correspond to the national interests of reconciliations, as well as be politically profitable. Reconciliation for the sake of reconciliation is unlikely to be interested in pragmatic politicians. In this regard, it is extremely important to analyze the motivation of Yerevan and Ankara, to understand the logic of that “shift of the milestone”, which occurred in the diplomatic approaches of two neighboring states.

After all, the same President of Armenia Serge Sargsyan before the beginning of the Armenian-Turkish “discharge” was considered by many as the successor of the tough line of his predecessor Robert Kocharian. Let me remind you that Serge Sargsyan occupied key positions in the power structures of Armenia (that is, by definition of a more conservative part of the republican establishment, which is just used to be suspected of a neighboring state). In 1989-1993 He headed the Committee for Self-Defense of Nagorno-Karabakh, in 1993-1995 and in 2000-2007. He was the Minister of Defense of Armenia, in 1995-1996. He headed the National Security Office, and in 1996-1999. - The Ministry of the Interior and Security. According to this impressive list, it is clear that in front of us was by no means a liberal and not a “dove of the world”. However, that is why the current president of Armenia was much better than many imagined the complex geopolitical position in which his country was. The land blockade by Turkey, a closed border with Azerbaijan, is an unresolved conflict due to the Nagorno-Karabakh, two “windows to the world”-through Georgia and through Iran, unreliable due to the long-term Russian-Georgian and American-Iranian confrontation. Under such conditions, the improvement of relations with Turkey (by establishing diplomatic relations and the discovery of 350 km. Ground borders) could tear off the entire complex of relations between Ankara and Yerevan from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which he seemed to be intended to start since 1993. Since both Washington and Moscow designated their interest in this, Armenian diplomats tried to implement the project to open the “third window” into the world through Turkey. And although today the task of the complete separation of Armenian-Turkish relations from the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict has not been completely resolved, but it is significant that in the texts of the two protocols the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is not considered. Consequently, Turkish diplomacy also has its own reasons to improve relations with a neighbor.

There are several such reasons (and all of them lie in the plane of pragmatic policy). Firstly, Türkiye has grown out the level of the "older brother" of Azerbaijan and seeks to come to the Caucasus by "zeroing problems with neighbors." This strategy has already bear fruit in the Middle Eastern direction of Turkish policy. "Türkiye re -opens the Middle East." With the help of this successful metaphor, the analyst of the famous Rand Corporation is trying to describe the efforts that Ankara has been making in this extremely difficult for the global agenda of the region. In the past five years, Ankara has made a serious breakthrough in the development of bilateral relations with Syria, although in the early 2000s. The relations of Ankara and Damascus were “in the minuses”, and experts even discussed possible military scenarios. In 2004, for the first time in the history of the Syrian president, he visited Turkey. Today, the diplomats of the two countries in a constructive manner are discussing issues such as the separation of the water resources of the Euphrates or the opposition of the Kurdish movement. This, among other things, made Damascus much more careful in approaches to recognition of the Armenian genocide.

Secondly, it should be noted the interest of Turkish regional officials and businessmen in the development of economic contacts with Armenia. They have repeatedly spoke out about this and publicly. A few years ago, on the NATO official website, Turkish researcher Burdzhu Gulki, published a work called “Prospects for Regional Cooperation on the Southeast Borders of NATO: development of Turkish-Russian cooperation in the South Caucasus”. In this work, Burdzhu Gultekin claims that Turkish politics is a hostage of relations with Azerbaijan. In her opinion, “the discovery of borders can help improve the image of Turkey in Armenian society, to withdraw relations between the two countries from today's crisis position.” Thus, in the Turkish expert community (traditionally tuned to Promerbaijani), the opinion that the current economic blockade of Armenia did not contribute to regional stability for more than a year.

On July 9, 2008, in the influential publication “Wall Street Journal Europe”, an article by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan with the “speaking” heading “We Are Ready to Talk to Turkey” (“We are ready to talk with Turkey”), in which the Armenian leader rightly stated that both Turks and Armenians were released by different ways to overcome the closed land border: “They benefit from regular flights from Yerevan to Istanbul and Antalya. There are numerous bus routes and taxis through Georgia and even trucks take long detours, thus helping trade between our countries. ” According to the head of the Turkish-Armenian Council for Business Development Kaan Soyak, the volume of trade between the two countries (taking into account the number of features described above) is 100-120 million US dollars. Thus, over many years, the Armenian-Turkish reconciliation had interested supporters not only “at the top”, but also among ordinary citizens of the two states. Without their support (or at least a neutral position), the parties would hardly move to the “road map” and to two protocols. Note that such support is not observed in Armenian-Azerbaijani or Russian-Georgian relations, and therefore in these two cases “peaceful breakthroughs” are not yet visible.

And the last consideration (in order, but not in importance) is the interest of Turkey in Europe, which is only intensified by “zumaning relations with a neighbor”.

But how to get around such a critical question for Armenia (and Armenians around the world), as a genocide?! More precisely, the problem of its recognition from Turkey. Two protocols give a certain and at the same time not too clear answer. This is “a dialogue in the historical plane between the two peoples, aimed at restoring mutual trust, including using a scientific impartial study of historical documents and archives to clarify the existing problems and formulating proposals”. This dialogue is planned to be developed in the format of “subcommission engaged in a historical plane” (it will work inside the Armenian-Turkish intergovernmental commission). It is difficult to say how the opinion of this commission will allow a long -term dispute of not only scientists of historians, but also politicians, ordinary citizens. Can even the most authoritative group of qualified, political neutral and objective researchers to break the ideas of the Turks and Armenians about the events of 1915? And how substantiated are the talk about the need for such a broken? I would venture to assume that the task of the "subcommittee of historians" is more modest. Most likely, the Armenians will not cease to insist on the need to recognize the genocide, and the Turks do not recognize it, but it is possible that some formulas will be found that allow everyone to “keep face” and agree to mutual disagreement on this issue.

Thus, the reconciliation of Armenia and Turkey is not completed. Moreover, it is fraught with many potential challenges, controversial points. And dissatisfaction with the peace process is not only a reaction of especially concerned nationalists, but often sincere and loving their countries of patriots. On the way to reconciliation, the regression and possible rollbacks back are not excluded. But some intermediate results today have a positive impact not only on the dynamics of bilateral relations. They show that historical reconciliation has alternatives, but none of them in their own benefits surpasses political dividends from reaching a compromise.