Davutoğlu had encountered Professor Nilüfer Göle, who is an instructor in France, during a reception held at the Versailles Palace the other day to mark the closing of the Turkish Season in France and invited her for a conversation over breakfast. Since we were also there, he invited Radikal Editor-in-Chief İsmet Berkan and myself as well.
In the midst of the deep conversation, the minister looked at his watch and said: “Feridun Sinirlioğlu is meeting with Serzh Sarksyan in Yerevan right now. He will go to Baku as well. And then Prime Minister Erdoğan will also meet with Sarksyan in Washington.” The minister confirmed the meeting.
It was certain they would meet, but it was unclear if US President Barack Obama would be participating in the meeting. In the end, the two leaders met in private at the Washington Convention Center. Obama met with both leaders separately. While writing these sentences, the media began reporting that Obama, who had yet to meet with Erdoğan, had called on Sarksyan to normalize relations. Obama will most likely give the same message to Erdoğan.
If there was any likelihood of progress, Obama would probably have wanted to meet with the two leaders together since it would have been considered a significantly important diplomatic success. Of course its better than nothing that Erdoğan and Sarksyan both agreed during their meeting that the protocols were not dead and indicated that their respective foreign ministers would work together to continue the process. Perhaps this development will allow us to avoid any problems on April 24 this year. But if the Erdoğan-Obama meeting concludes in the same way, then the announcements the Turkish and Armenian leaders made after their private talks do not point to any promising developments in the near future. Erdoğan, who spoke at George Mason University immediately after the meeting, recalled a letter he wrote in 2005 to then Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and underlined that historians need to debate the nature of the 1915 incidents, that the decisions various parliaments have taken on this matter are not to Armenia’s advantage and warned that these decisions were a blow to the search for a compromise.
In the speech he delivered after visiting the grave of US President Woodrow Wilson, who in the aftermath of World War I promised Armenians a country, Sarksyan said Armenia did not want to debate the genocide in any format and indicated that he did not believe Turkey could play a positive role in solving the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. He accused Turkey of speaking to Armenia and Armenians with preconditions and warned that they would not tolerate it.
Certainly normalizing relations between the two countries and peoples would have had significant benefits for both Turkey and Armenia. In this way, Turkey would have escaped pressure from the international community with respect to the genocide issue and opening the border would have relieved Armenia. Perhaps this positive ambiance would have facilitated finding a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. But according to the picture that has been painted, its seams the benefits that will be obtained through compromise do not outweigh the risks that will be created if the status quo changes.
In this context, the stance of Turkey, which has a population of 72 million, an economy worth almost $1 trillion and a high profile in international relations, can be understandable to a certain extent. But is it not surreal for Armenia to expect results without giving up on occupying Azerbaijan and leading a campaign against Turkey to recognize the genocide despite the major problems it is facing?
Could the source of this surrealism in Yerevan be the lack of international forces, which keep pressuring Ankara to open its border, to speak out against the Armenian occupation?
