Friday, April 24, 2009

Threesome

Armenia and Turkey have announced a protocol to normalize relations. So far, so good. However, the protocol has simply been initialed and both parties need their respective parliaments to approve. That may be difficult in Armenia, and not so hard in Turkey. Another 'however' is the participation of Baku and its fears that Turkey is about to hang it out to dry over the NK region. Turkey will need to do something to calm them down. Their threats to cut of the gas and oil pipelines to Turkey and route them through Russia is probably not serious - they simply don't like the Russians. Nevertheless, the concerns over concessions on the NK - particularly if they involve giving up any claims - are real and need to be addressed.

As pointed out in this blog and elsewhere, an open border arrangement with Turkey is a big win for Armenia. It would open up trade routes and give Armenia access to ports other than those in Georgia. Increased economic activity would also, finally, provide support to all the economic and social development assistance programs that have been operating in Armenia since independence.

Yerevan will, of course, need to shrug off all the California Armenian patriots who comfortably oppose from their air-conditioned homes any dealings with Americas largest ally in the middle east - and a democratic one at that - unless Turkey agrees to refer to the death and destruction of Armenians and their villages during the waning days of the Ottomon Empire as a genocide. This will never happen and the Turkish proposal to set up a commission to study the period is the next best step.

Let's understand a couple of things. Ottomon policy was to punish independence minded Armenians for joining with the Russian Empire during World War I. This was official policy carried out to the extreme by units in the field resulting in the death of perhaps over 1.5 million ethnic Armenians. For Armenia itself, it is clearly important for Turkey to recognize the atrocities committed by Ottomon officers and soldiers on orders from Constantinople. If Turkey can find a way to do so, and if Armenia ultimately understands that their isolation and geographic position will keep the country poverty-stricken, at war with its neighbors and dependent on Russia, then a compromise will be reached.

In the meantime, the diaspora in their comfortable homes and relatively easy lives should keep to themselves and let those on the front lines resolve their differences.

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