Etiket armenia

Opening to Armenia, not a smooth process either

News, Etc. The difficulties lying ahead in Turkey’s opening to Armenia surfaced on October 10 in Zurich while the foreign ministers of the two countries were preparing to sign a protocol brokered by Switzerland. The signing ceremony scheduled for 18.00 was delayed more than three hours when both ministers objected to the content of planned speeches to be made by their opposite number. Although no official explanation was made, press reports claimed that Edvart Nalbantyan, the Armenian foreign minister wanted to mention 1915 events as genocide in his speech which was found unacceptable by his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu. Another point that Davutoglu objected in Nalbantyan’s speech was that the Armenian foreign minister wanted to underline that the protocol to be signed is not related to the Nagorno-Karabagh dispute with Azerbaijan. Conversely, Nalbantyan objected to the part of Davutoglu’s speech where the Turkish foreign minister wanted to say that the protocol will be put into practice only after the solution of the Nagorno-Karabagh problem. Nagorno-Karabagh is an Azeri territory occupied by Armenia since 1993. Turkey does not want to upset the Azeris by becoming too close to Armenia because of this issue. Finally, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mediated between the two ministers and convinced Nalbantyan to agree with Davutoglu’s offer to make no speeches at all. Three hours later, the two ministers signed the protocol with grim faces as Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Slovenian Foreign Minister Samuel Zbogar as the chairman of the EU Council of Ministers, the EU Commissioner Javier Solana, and the Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey watched them standing behind. Azeri Foreign Ministry lost no time to react to the Turkey-Armenia protocol. In a written statement from Baku, it said the rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia before Armenia […]

Turkey’s winter of openings*

Niyazi Dalyancı “Opening” is the word that has dominated Turkey’s political scene for more than six months now. It seems that the coming winter months would not be able to witness a change of tune unless earthshaking events push this term to the backstage. One of the so-called policy openings concern Turkey’s biggest domestic headache, the Kurdish problem. The other is related to the normalization of relations with Armenia. Although both initiatives were met with optimism in the beginning, six months later they seem even more entangled than ever. It is also interesting to note that both initiatives gained momentum after the new U.S. President Barack Obama visited Turkey in April and delivered an address to the deputies in the Turkish Grand National Assembly.“In the last several years, you have abolished state-security courts and expanded the right to counsel. You have reformed the penal code, and strengthened laws that govern the freedom of the press and assembly. You lifted bans on teaching and broadcasting Kurdish, and the world noted with respect the important signal sent through a new state Kurdish television station,” told Obama to his Turkish interlocutors.According to some Turkish commentators, the U.S. administration has been applying pressure on the Turkish government to solve its Kurdish problem before the American troops pull out of Iraq by 2012 as promised by Obama. American policy-makers are planning to put the Iraqi Kurds under Turkey’s protection against possible attacks from the Sunni and Shiite Arabs after the pull out, according these commentators. In order for the implementation of this policy, Turkey has to pacify the civil strife in its Kurdish provinces neighboring northern Iraq.On August 5, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan met with Ahmet Turk, the leader of pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) and a group of deputies. Until then, he had insisted […]