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| 2004-05-25 | | RELATIONS WITH TURKEY MIGHT HINDER ARMENIA-NATO COOPERATION | | | | Relations with Turkey might hinder Armenia-NATO cooperation, Armenian news agency Mediamax has reported. Armenian President Robert Kocharyan has refused to attend a NATO summit in Istanbul in order to once again draw the alliance's attention to problems in relations between Yerevan and Ankara. The USA promised to mediate Armenian-Turkish dialogue back in 1999, but with no results so far, the news agency said. But "how far-sighted is the Yerevan government when it puts its relations with Turkey and NATO on the same scale", the agency questioned. The following is an excerpt from the report in English by Armenian news agency Mediamax headlined "Will the Armenian-Turkish border become a separation line between Armenia and NATO?"; subheadings inserted editorially:
On 10 May, the Armenian president's press secretary Ashot Kocharyan announced that [President] Robert Kocharyan would not take part in the NATO summit in Istanbul in June. The reason for Robert Kocharyan's decision is the "current state of Armenian-Turkish relations".
The Armenian president took part in the two latest summits of NATO and the Council of Euro-Atlantic Partnership in Washington and Prague, so the reasons making him refuse to participate in the Istanbul summit must be really serious. At the same time, if viewed from different aspects this decision seems quite controversial.
USA promised to mediate Armenian-Turkish dialogue
Robert Kocharyan's critics recall that not only did the Armenian president take part in the OSCE summit in Istanbul in the autumn of 1999, but he also met Turkish President Suleyman Demirel within the framework of the summit. The Armenian president's opponents note that the state of Armenian-Turkish relations at that time left much to be desired as well. However, few people remember that Armenia decided to take part in the Istanbul summit of the OSCE after the international community, and the United States in the first place, had convinced Yerevan to give up the intention to impose veto on the decision to hold the summit in Turkey.
Meanwhile, the Yerevan government seriously considered using the right of veto in order to draw attention to the fact that Turkey is the only OSCE member-state that refuses to establish diplomatic
relations with Armenia. The Americans managed to persuade Yerevan promising to influence Turkey thus making it change its position as regards the normalizing of relations with Armenia. US President Bill Clinton discussed this issue during his talks with the Armenian and Turkish presidents on the sidelines of the Istanbul summit of the OSCE in 1999. Asked by Mediamax then whether the USA could become a mediator between Armenia and Turkey, Robert Kocharyan said: "I think, yes.
The United States has been trying to play this positive role for already several months." As to the plans to veto the decision on holding the OSCE summit in Istanbul, Robert Kocharyan noted that such a step could throw back the development of bilateral relations for at least several years.
Nearly five years have passed since that. During this time, the United States has really made and is continuing to make many efforts in order to achieve the normalization of relations between Yerevan
and Ankara. But no tangible results have been achieved - there are no diplomatic relations, the border is closed, and the improvement of relations is linked to the settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. Against this background, Armenian President Robert Kocharyan's decision to refuse to attend the NATO summit in Istanbul seems righteous, and most likely pursues the aim to remind the USA of the promises made five years ago. On the other hand, a question emerges – how far-sighted is the Yerevan government when it puts its relations with Turkey and NATO on the same scale?
Armenia does not ignore NATO summit
It is no secret that NATO's policy in the South Caucasus will be one of the central themes at the alliance's summit in Istanbul.
[Passage omitted: Armenia signed several accords with NATO recently]
There is no doubt that certain forces both inside Armenia and outside it are trying to present Robert Kocharyan's non-participation in the NATO summit in Istanbul as "Moscow's private order". However, such hints have already been voiced - one of Yerevan's opposition newspapers wrote that Robert Kocharyan made the decision not to go to Istanbul after the recent meeting with Vladimir Putin, though the statement by the president's press secretary about not taking part in the summit was made three days before Kocharyan's working trip to Moscow.
On the other hand, Yerevan is not going to ignore the NATO summit – the Armenian delegation in Istanbul will be headed by Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan. The only problem is that the Armenian president's absence and the Georgian and Azerbaijani leaders' presence at the summit may create a certain political background, which is not desirable for Armenia at all today when it has taken a number of steps which ought to prove that Armenia presents its own interests in the region and not those of Russia.
There is another aspect too, which casts doubts upon the efficiency of the Armenian leader's decision, the main aim of which is to draw NATO's attention to the problem of Armenian-Turkish relations. The alliance's leaders have repeatedly stated during the last few years that they do not intend to act as mediators between Yerevan and Ankara.
[Passage omitted: quotes NATO chief George Robertson's 2001 interview]
Thus, the Armenian president's absence at the summit in Istanbul might not only fail to contribute to the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, but it will also deprive Yerevan of an opportunity to make another step to get close to NATO.
New tactics
Three or four years ago, Armenian diplomats said in private talks that they were intentionally using the "Turkish factor" as a lever at talks with NATO, making emphasis on the fact that the absence of diplomatic relations with Turkey negatively affected the alliance's image in Armenia. It is difficult to say what results could be achieved by such policy but it is obvious that Yerevan has recently adhered to different tactics the essence of which is to demonstrate its readiness to take part in all NATO-led events which are in one way or another connected with Turkey or Azerbaijan, thus pushing forward the idea about the necessity to start regional cooperation in the South Caucasus.
[Passage omitted: on Armenian army chief's visit to Brussels in May 2004]
It is unlikely that the Armenian president's refusal to take part in NATO's Istanbul summit can be considered as the rejection of this new tactics, during the realization of which Yerevan, unlike the policy of the past years, uses NATO as a "bridge" for establishing at least some kind of contacts between Armenia and Turkey. But, on the other hand, Armenia's adversaries can interpret Robert Kocharyan's refusal to arrive in Istanbul as the refusal to adhere to regional partnership, including within the PfP [NATO's Partnership for Peace programme] framework.
Armenian-Turkish ties might hinder cooperation with NATO
Finally, we would like to directly touch upon Armenian-Turkish relations. While in 2003, both sides made optimistic statements about the possibility to achieve some progress, the first five months of 2004 buried all the hopes.
Last year, the Armenian and Turkish foreign ministers, Vardan Oskanyan and Abdullah Gul, held three meetings. Commenting on the results of his latest meeting with Gul in Brussels on 5 December 2003, Vardan Oskanyan said it "differed qualitatively from the two previous ones. We are about to make the first step. Although it is still early to make definite statements, I should say that this meeting has become an important stage, and I think that within the next few months we will get the first positive result concerning the issue of the Turkish-Armenian border," the Armenian foreign minister said.
Late in April 2004, Vardan Oskanyan said in an interview with German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "The start of our relations with the new Turkish government was good. Since last year, I have had three meetings with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. The first meeting was good, the second less good, and the third one was bad. First, we concentrated on bilateral issues. During the second meeting, we discussed the Nagornyy Karabakh issue as well, and during the third one the Karabakh issue became a precondition for normalizing relations. Thus, we remained on the same positions we were during the former Turkish government."
One thing remains quite unintelligible - why did the Armenian minister give a different assessment of his latest meeting with Abdullah Gul only half a year later? No matter what the problem is the situation will not change - Armenia deprives itself of an opportunity to be represented at a high level at an extremely important NATO summit in Istanbul because of the absence of relations with Turkey. If in the next years events develop according to the same scenario, the Armenian-Turkish border will become that very separation line between Armenia and NATO, which is so feared by Yerevan.
Yerevan
24 May 04
| | News Source: Mediamax news agency |
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