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Armenian-Turkish relations

Armenia	Turkey

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There are currently no formal diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey. Armenia gained independence in 1991, having lacked diplomatic relations with Turkey throughout the Soviet era, as Moscow was the Soviet seat of diplomacy. While Turkey recognized the state of Armenia, for various reasons it refused to establish formal diplomatic relations with the Armenian state. In 1993, Turkey closed its borders with Armenia due to the Nagarno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a Turkic nation with close ties to Turkey. Tensions stemming from the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire are a bitter point of contention, with the Armenian state decrying the killings as genocide; the modern Turkish state denies that a genocide of Armenians occurred in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, and indeed merely to speak of a claim of Armenian Genocide in modern Turkey is to risk "insulting Turkishness", a criminal offense for which various Turkish intelligentsia have been prosecuted.

While the lingering bitterness of the 1915 killings underlies much of the tension between the modern states, several key factors have served to exacerbate relations between the nations over the course of the ensuing century. In the 1970s, a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organization, calling itself the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, took to assassinating Turkish diplomats in several European countries. These killings contributed to stoking resentment of ethnic Armenians among Turks, while exciting nationalistic sentiment in Turkey, a feature of the state reflected today in its persistent campaign to deny or rationalize the 1915 massacres of Armenians. The 2007 assassination of Armenian intellectual Hrant Dink by a Turkish nationalist, and the ensuing scandal in which his killer was exalted as a hero by some government officials while in police custody, served as a stark reminder of just how egregious the historico-political tensions remain even today.

In the wake of Hrant Dink's murder, tens of thousands of Turkish citizens throughout the country marched in protest of the killing, sounding a hopeful note in the development of Armenian-Turkish relations.

Turkic migration to Anatolia, and the rise of empire

Turkic tribes ranged westward towards the Middle East and Anatolia, encroaching upon local populations that included Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians. In 1071, the Seljuks routed the Byzantine army at Manzikert, an Armenian-populated city of Byzantine Anatolia. Alexius I's request for aid from Pope Urban II, while perhaps intent upon rolling back Seljuk gains in Anatolia, ultimately precipitated the First Crusade, unleashing a widespread violence that proved durable over centuries, recasting the conflict as religious rather than territorial. Armenian sympathies for western invaders, and indeed Armenian military service and aid to crusading western Christians, underlies the tensions that persist between Turkey and Armenia today.

Turkic migrants easily overran Anatolia, despite occasional western incursions in the form of crusading armies and settlements. Absorbing and transmitting Islamic culture and civilization, and given an enormous superiority in population and organization, regional power naturally came to rest in the hands of the "Turkish" population. Nonetheless, Armenian communities continued to flourish under relatively tolerant Ottoman rule for centuries, either as minority populations in urban areas or as exclusively Armenian towns in rural areas. In cities such as Constantinople (modern Istanbul) and Smyrna (modern İzmir), Armenians played particularly important roles; an 1851 New York Times report, for instance, indicates that Armenians comprised nearly one quarter of the population of Constantinople at that time, with over 200,000 residents.

Armenian-Turkish relations during the decline of the Ottoman Empire

Hamidian rule

For a half century leading up to the Great War, the Armenian populations of Anatolia became increasingly politically fractious, and in turn endured increasingly more brutal persecution under Sultan Abdul Hamid II. As the Ottoman Empire declined, its political leadership either authorized or tolerated increasingly violent and reckless attacks on the Armenian population, attracting harsh criticism from various Western nations whose missionary communities in Anatolia witnessed several massacres of Armenians.

The concurrent and accumulated testimony of hundreds and thousands of intelligent people, Christian and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, European and American, made it conclusively certain that a massacre of innocents, unparalleled for ages, had been perpetrated in the Armenian provinces of Turkey.The New York Times January 25, 1896

The seizure of the Ottoman Bank by Armenian revolutionaries later that year, apparently a naive plea for Western intervention on behalf of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire, contributed to stoking Hamidian persecution of Armenians. While the nationalist dissidents who stormed the bank escaped, the Armenian population at large found itself subject to intensified violence, as the sultan made no distinction between the criminal elements who had stormed the bank and the Christian populations at large.

The ensuing violence prompted condemnation from several heads of state, including American President Grover Cleveland, who condemned the "bloody butchery" in Anatolia. While it remains unclear to what extent the violence against Armenians was governmentally organized, Cleveland's speech noted that "strong evidence exists of actual complicity of Turkish soldiers in the work of destruction and robbery".

In 1909, as the authority of the nascent Young Turk government splintered, Abdul Hamid II briefly regained his sultanate with a populist appeal to Islamism. 30,000 Armenians perished in the subsequent Adana Massacre.

The Armenian Genocide

In 1915, an Ottoman campaign to eliminate the Armenian population of Anatolia claimed the lives of between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Armenians. Since then, relations between the two communities have remained strained.

The modern Turkish government has systematically denied or rationalized the killings of Armenians during the Ottoman period, inflaming Armenian resentment in Armenia and around the world. It remains a criminal offense to speak of the Armenian Genocide in modern Turkey, the Turkish educational system proffering an alternative view of the events in its public schools and through many of its governmental websites.

Democratic Republic of Armenia

The 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litowsk established three independent states in the Caucasus, including the Democratic Republic of Armenia. Within two months of its signing, the Ottoman Empire reneged on the treaty by invading the nascent Armenian state. Ottoman victory culminated in the Treaty of Batum in June 1918.

The Interwar Period, and The Soviet Era

The interwar period was marked by the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire; Anatolia became the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Turkish revolutionaries waged the Turkish War of Independence against Ottoman loyalists and invading forces, and engaged in continuing conflict with the Democratic Republic of Armenia.

Armenia formally declared war on September 24, 1920: the Turkish-Armenian War was underway. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk sent delegations to Moscow; the DRA would ultimately become the Armenian SSR of the Soviet Union. The Treaty of Kars was signed on October 23, 1921, between the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and representatives of Bolshevist Russia, Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan and Soviet Georgia (all of which formed part of the Soviet Union after the December 1922 Union Treaty).

The Soviet Union and Turkey remained officially neutral after the Treaty of Kars, and there was no hostility between Turkey and the Armenian SSR.

ASALA

The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, ASALA, was a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organization that operated from 1975 to 1991. It launched a series of attacks against Turkish diplomats in several countries, its intention "to compel the Turkish Government to acknowledge publicly its alleged responsibility for the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915, pay reparations, and cede territory for an Armenian homeland". The territorial claim related to the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, a Woodrow Wilson-era plan for an Armenian homeland.

A Diaspora organization without any known ties to the Soviet Armenian government, ASALA was derided as a "terrorist organization" in the West, for its regular attacks on Turkish officials. The group planned attacks worldwide, though it experienced internal splintering after its 1983 Orly Airport attack incurred non-Turkish casualties. According to MIPT website, there had been 84 incidents involving ASALA leaving 46 people dead, and 299 people injured.

A similar organization, Justice Commandos against the Armenian Genocide, at times known as the Armenian Revolutionary Army, was responsible for at least an additional six killings. In a particularly ugly 1983 attack on the Turkish Embassy in Lisbon, the gunmen deliberately "sacrificed" themselves by setting off a bomb in the building, such that none of them survived.

Amidst a spate of attacks in 1985, U.S. President Ronald Reagan asked Congress to defeat a resolution recognizing the "genocidal massacre" of Armenians, in part for his fear that it might indirectly "reward terrorism".

Armenian independence 1991

Border

The border between Turkey and Armenia remains closed, on a Turkish initiative. This closure is the result of a variety of conditions, some of which relate to historical misgivings and diplomatic tensions.

The most immediate cause of the 1993 border closure related to the Nagarno-Karabakh War between the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, backed by the Armenian state, and Azerbaijan, a Turkic nation with close ties to Turkey. Relations between Armenia and Turkey had not formally developed in decades, as Soviet control co-opted Armenian diplomacy, preserving intercultural tensions between Armenians and Turks stemming from the 1915 massacres of the Armenian peoples of Anatolia. With the evaporation of Soviet stewardship, Armenia and Turkey rediscovered the opportunity to fear and loathe one another.

In the post-Soviet climate of irredentism, Turkey was particularly wary of hard-line Armenian sentiment laying claim to the territory of "Historic Armenia" within Turkey. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, an Armenian political party among the Armenian coalition government, continues to insist on a reversion to the Treaty of Sevres territorial boundaries. The tension underlying the nations' borders is augmented by Turkey's conflict with Kurdish separatist groups; Turkey's initial closure of the border with Armenia occurred amidst a flaring up of violence between Kurdish separatist and Turkish government forces, at a time when Turkey was particularly concerned with its borders' security.

Some Armenian officials, such as Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, have asserted that there is no issue of border between Turkey and Armenia, except the Turkish government's fear of Armenian territorial designs. The border was agreed to while Armenia was under Soviet control, under the Kars treaty, which Oskanian accuses Turkey of compromising by maintaining a closed border with Armenia. Armenia claims that Turkey is using the blockade to isolate the country with projects such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline and the Kars-Akhalkalaki-Baku railway, all of which directly bypass Armenia despite the economic logic of incorporating Armenia. A rail line from Kars to Baku already exists in fact, but is closed by Turkey, as it passes through the Turkish-Armenian border.

The Armenian demand to unify Karabakh with Armenia, which proliferated in the late 1980s, began in a relatively peaceful manner; however, as the Soviet Union's disintegration neared, the dispute gradually grew into a violent conflict between the ethnic groups in Nagorno-Karabakh, resulting in ethnic cleansing by all sides. The closing of the border by Turkey may have been a preventative measure aimed at containing militarism and radicalism, as the isolation of indigenous Armenians within Turkey may have served to dissuade them from taking up arms in pursuit of political or territorial claims.

Turkey has opened its airspace to Armenia in a limited capacity, while land trade is currently diverted through Georgia.

Nagorno-Karabakh

Turkey approaches the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict using the Minsk Process and standing by the principal of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Turkey supported indirect bilateral talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia. With the aim of playing a facilitator role, Turkey initiated a trilateral process of dialogue (Reykjavik, 2002 & Istanbul Summit, 2004) among the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant

Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant is an additional point of conflict in Armenian-Turkish relations. While it produces nearly half of Armenia's electricity, the plant is "severely outdated", posing a safety concern for Armenians and neighboring Turkish populations alike.

Turkey has appealed to the IAEA and the European Union to pressure the Armenian government to act on its safety concerns. In May 2007, reports surfaced that Armenia may have reached an agreement with Russia, whereby Russian funds would finance a new power plant in exchange for partial ownership. The cost of the transition remains the sticking point, as shutting down Metsamor alone is estimated to cost approximately one quarter of a billion US dollars.

Minority issues

There is no significant Turkish population currently residing in Armenia, though there was a notable Turkic-speaking population in the country before the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Armenians continue to be the largest minority group in Turkey with an estimated population of 40,000 to 70,000; in 2007, Turkish Prime Minister Recep T. Erdoğan suggested that upwards of 40,000 Armenians were residing in Turkey illegally, without legal work permits.

Current Developments

Threat assessment

Armenian President Robert Kocharian said that Armenia continues to perceive Turkey as a "threat". Kocharian stated that Turkish revisionism is "not only an ethical problem" but "a national security problem": "We have the same neighbor now that refused to accept its guilt in 1915. There is a risk that what happened before could happen again."

Hrant Dink assassination

The January 2007 assassination of Hrant Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, brought the issue of Armenian-Turkish relations into the national consciousness of modern Turkish citizens. Dink was instrumental in getting Turks to discuss the Armenian issue, an effort for which he found himself the target of criminal prosecution. Nonetheless, Dink also reserved some criticism for the Armenian diaspora, for its insistence on enforcing a claim of genocide without engaging the modern Turkish people.

At his funeral tens of thousands of Turks marched in solidarity with Dink, many bearing placards reading “We are all Armenians”.

Turkish overtures to re-examine 1915 events

Turkish leadership has suggested that a committee of Turkish and Armenian historians re-examine the events of 1915, challenging the committee to prove that Armenian deaths resulted from a genocidal intent, rather than war-time famine and mutual struggle. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said they would respect the conclusion of such a task force. Armenian leadership has rejected the overture, indicating that the overture itself is a political maneuver, and that the "normalization of bilateral relations is the responsibility of governments, not historians."

International mediation

As much Armenian-Turkish tension stems from the 1915 Armenian Genocide and its subsequent denial by the modern Turkish government, many attempts have been made to reconcile the conflicting perspectives of Armenia and Turkey. The Turkish government has struggled, for its part, to find support for its position, as several nations and American States have passed formal legislative condemnations of the Armenian Genocide, often despite Turkish diplomatic and economic pressure.

Other times, Turkish diplomatic pressures to squelch recognition of the killings have been more effective. In March 2007, for instance, Condoleezza Rice and Robert M. Gates signed an open letter to Congress, warning that formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide “could harm American troops in the field” by "antagonizing" Turkey.

Several international organizations have conducted studies of the events, each in turn determining that the term "genocide" aptly describes "the Ottoman massacre of Armenians in 1915-1916." Among the organizations asserting this conclusion are the International Center for Transitional Justice, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the United Nations' Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

Upon the death of Hrant Dink, The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity produced a letter signed by 53 Nobel Laureates that was critical of both nations, calling for "reconciliation" and re-affirming the Genocide Scholars' conclusion that the 1915 killings of Armenians constituted genocide. Wiesel's organization also asserted that Turkish acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide would create no legal "basis for reparations or territorial claims", anticipating Turkish anxieties that it could prompt financial or territorial claims.

Nonetheless, the modern Turkish state suggests additional arbitration. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül has suggested that Turkey looks forward to arbitration, believing that it can effectively counter claims of an Armenian Genocide.

Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, while conceding that "genocide denial hurts", insists that the Turkish viewpoint does not necessarily "impede the normalization of our relations".

For us, there's no court case, we'll never talk about this,

because we grew up with the real evidence, our parents and our grandparents. That living evidence of this tragedy, survival of genocide, I'm the son of one them. So for Armenians there has never been an issue where we ourselves have to prove this by going to court, that this genocide happened. The question for us is to get a political solution. Because the issue is neither

historical nor legal, it's political... between the governments of Turkey and Armenia.

European Union membership

Some Armenian political activist groups, as well as some European Union politicians who are politically sensitive to the Armenian Genocide issue, have attempted to pressure Turkey into formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide as a precondition for joining the EU. These efforts to exploit Turkey's vulnerability in its attempted accession into the EU have been widely criticized within Turkey.

Among the fiercest critics of this method of pressuring Turkey was the late Hrant Dink, who accused Angela Merkel of sponsoring legislation acknowledging the Armenian Genocide to undermine Turkey's EU ambitions. Dink suggested that anyone sincerely interested in the welfare of the Armenian and Turkish peoples would sooner pressure Yerevan to finally replace the Metsamor reactor, or pressure Turkey to finally open the Armenian-Turkish border, or even just generally "help economically and diplomatically and support the moderates who exist on both sides."

According to Armenian President Robert Kocharian, "Armenia has never been against Turkey's accession to the European Union." Armenia itself is a member of the EU's New Neighborhood group, which may one day lead to EU membership.

See also

• Armenian Genocide
• Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia
• Hrant Dink
• Armenians in Turkey
• Turkish-Armenian War

References

1. ^ GlobalHeritageFund.org The Ties That Divide
2. Burning Tigris, The: The Armenian Genocide and America's Awakening to International Human Rights By Peter Balakian
3. Template:Ru icon Text of the Treaty of Kars
4. English translation of the Treaty of Kars
5. Vasn Hayutyan, Vasn Hayrenyats, ASALA publication, 1995
6. U.S. Department of State. "Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA)". Retrieved 2007-01-26.
7. Pitman, Paul M. Turkey: A Country Study. Washington D.C.: The Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 283, 354-355
9. http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=258
10. http://www.b-info.com/tools/miva/newsview.mv?url=news/2001-01/text/jan16e.rfe
11. ^ All Armenian Mass Media Association: In Vartan Oskanian's Words, Turkey Casts Doubt On The Treaty Of Kars With Its Actions
12. "Case Study in Ethnic Strife. (Nagorno-Karabakh)". Foreign Affairs v76, n2 1997. Council on Foreign Relations. June 1997. Retrieved 2007-02-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
13. "Ankara not expects negative decision on genocide resolution". Retrieved 12 Apr. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
14. Cite error: The named reference newanatolian was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
15. FT
16. http://www.armenialiberty.org/armeniareport/report/en/2007/02/786D82CE-E489-47EA-A15C-BABC50859734.asp
17. http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=65457
18. http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=International_Center_for_Transitional_Justice
19. http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=65457
20. http://www.norharevanner.am/news.php?cont=3&rg=2&date=21.12.2006&month=13&year=2006
21. http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/05/077d3a6b-3883-4119-972e-cc470a9ff6b6.html

External links

• Brief history of Armenian-Turkish relations after the Armenian Genocide.
• Armenian-Turkish relations ARF View
• Turks flock to editor’s funeral
• Armenian-Turkish Conflict
• Revisiting the Armenian Genocide

• Armenian Genocide
• Foreign relations of Armenia
• Foreign relations of Turkey