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YEREVAN (RFE/RL)–Armenia’s
President Serzh Sarkisian insisted on Tuesday that he will not
travel to Turkey in October to watch the return match of the two
countries’ national football teams unless Ankara moves to reopen
the Turkish-Armenian border.
Turkish President Abdullah
Gul extended a relevant invitation to Sarkisian after paying a
visit to Yerevan in September last year, during which the two
leaders jointly attended the first Turkey-Armenia game. The
so-called “football diplomacy” ushered in a Turkish-Armenia
rapprochement that left the two historical foes on the verge of
normalizing their strained relations earlier this year.
But negotiations between
the two countries have come to a standstill after the countries
on April 22 issued a joint announcement on a “roadmap” to
normalizing relations. The announcement came on the eve of the
annual anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman
Turkish government and its timing is believed to have allowed
U.S. President Barack Obama to backtrack on his pledges to
officially recognize the genocide.
The statement was soon
followed by repeated declarations from the highest levels of
Turkey’s government conditioning the establishment of diplomatic
relations with Armenia to a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict favoring Azerbaijan.
“Given the existing
situation, we certainly expect to witness soon constructive
steps with which our [Turkish] partners would try to create a
proper environment for the return visit of the president of
Armenia,” said Sarkisian. That means taking “real steps” to
honor Turkish-Armenian agreements reached during the year-long
dialogue, he said.
“That is, I will leave for
Turkey if we have an open border or stand on the brink of the
lifting of Armenia’s blockade,” added the Armenian leader.
The remarks reflected
Sarkisian’s frustration with Turkey’s unwillingness so far to
unconditionally establish diplomatic relations and reopen its
border with Armenia despite concessions made by him. Yerevan
insists that the Turks dropped their preconditions for
normalizing bilateral ties during months of fence-mending
negotiations.
Analysts close to the
conflict, however, point to a long-running policy in Ankara that
has sought to couple rapprochement with Armenia to the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in an attempt to convince
international mediators that the the success of one process
hinges on the other.
Sarkisian is accused of
willingly allowing Turkey to gain a foothold in the Karabakh
peace process and sacrificing U.S. recognition of the Armenian
genocide without securing the lifting of the 16-year Turkish
blockade or any guarantees for Karabakh. He is also being
condemned for his apparent acceptance of a Turkish proposal to
form a panel of historians that will “examine” the events of
1915.
Earlier in July, a two-day
Pan-Armenian conference in Stepanakert, organized by the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation, demanded Sarkisian make
immediate and drastic corrections to his administration’s flawed
approach to both the ongoing negotiations with Turkey and the
Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks. A resolution, unanimously passed
by the summit’s 135 delegates on July 14, demanded that Armenia
immediately break off from negotiations with Turkey.
The ARF shortly after
called for the resignation of Armenia’s Foreign Minister Eduard
Nalbandian to eliminate “the negative consequences that have
emerged in the foreign policy domain.”
Under growing pressure at
home, Sarkisian issued his warning to Ankara after talks with
Serbia’s visiting President Boris Tadic. He said he briefed
Tadic on his Western-backed diplomatic overtures to Turkey.
Sarkisian said the two
leaders agreed on the need for a peaceful resolution of conflict
in the Balkans and the South Caucasus “in accordance with the
principles and norms of international law.”
“We believe that there are
no universal ways of solving conflicts,” he told reporters.
“Every conflict has its own history, causes and its own unique
course.”
It was an apparent
rejection of parallels between the conflicts over
Nagorno-Karabakh and Kosovo, a breakaway Serbian region that has
been recognized as an independent state by much of the
international community. Kosovo’s secession in strong support
for the principle of territorial integrity voiced by Serbian
leaders.
Tadic himself has called
for the application of that principle to the Karabakh dispute in
the past. With journalists not allowed to put questions to
either president, it was not clear if he stands by that
statement.
Also, Serbia was one of
the few European nations that voted in March 2008 for a UN
General Assembly resolution that upheld Azerbaijani sovereignty
over Karabakh and demanded an “unconditional” Armenian
withdrawal from occupied Azerbaijani territories. |
