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 With
each passing day, the games Turkish officials have been playing
with the Protocols are becoming more obvious and ridiculous!
Throughout the long months of negotiations, I
repeatedly warned that Turkish officials were not sincere in
their announced intention of opening the border with Armenia and
establishing diplomatic relations. By acting as if they were
seeking reconciliation with Armenia, Turkish leaders simply
wanted to prevent further acknowledgment of the Armenian
Genocide by third countries, extract maximum concessions from
Armenia on Artsakh (Karabagh), and block future territorial
demands from Turkey.
Turkey first dragged out the negotiations
until right before April 24 to preclude Pres. Obama from keeping
his promise on recognizing the Armenian Genocide. The Protocols
were finally signed on October 10, to ensure that Pres. Sargsyan
does go to Turkey to attend the soccer match between the
national teams of the two countries.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s leaders were repeatedly
announcing that they would not open the border and their
Parliament would not ratify the Protocols until Armenia returned
Artsakh to Azerbaijan — even though there is no such requirement
in the signed documents. More than a month has now passed since
the signing of the Protocols in Zurich, but there are no signs
that the Turkish Parliament would ratify them anytime soon.
Just before signing the Protocols, Turkey’s
President Abdullah Gul and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
traveled to Azerbaijan to pledge once again that they had no
intention of opening the border with Armenia until Artsakh was
returned to Azerbaijan.
As if these outrageous pre-conditions were
not sufficient to shake Armenians’ confidence in the Protocols,
Turkish officials made no attempt to hide their deceptive
designs.
The October 5th issue of the Turkish
newspaper Hurriyet quoted Foreign Ministry officials in Ankara
as stating: “The formation of a joint history commission and
re-opening the border are included in the documents. However,
they can be put into effect only after a solution is found to
the Karabakh issue. Without a solution to the Karabakh conflict,
these protocols cannot be transferred to Parliament. Even then,
Parliament would not adopt it. So, relax.”
To convince the Azerbaijanis that Turkey had
no plans to ratify the Protocols, Turkish Foreign Ministry
officials boasted about their success in deceiving Europeans on
another agreement: “Turkey had to sign a protocol with the
European Union on the Cyprus issue. What happened? Did Turkey
open its seaports and airports to Cypriot vessels and airplanes,
after four years?
We now have solid evidence that these Turkish
officials were not making an idle boast when they indicated that
signing an agreement means nothing to them. In the Oct. 25 issue
of “Today’s Zaman,” commentator Ercan Yavuz cited dozens of
examples of agreements signed by Turkey, but not ratified, after
the passage of many years! At present, there are 146 agreements
with 95 countries, including Argentina, Azerbaijan, Libya,
Slovenia, Sweden, and Syria, awaiting the approval of the
Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Commission. The oldest — an
agreement signed 26 years ago between Iraq and Turkey — is still
pending ratification by the Turkish Parliament. Many other
important agreements have been signed since 2004, but still not
ratified!
Given the Turkish record of not taking
seriously commitments made on behalf of their country, it should
not come as a surprise to anyone that the Turkish Parliament
would not ratify the Armenia-Turkey Protocols anytime soon. Of
course, by not ratifying the Protocols, Turkey would be breaking
its written pledge of August 31, to ratify the Protocols in a
“timely” manner.
Interestingly, Armenia’s Foreign Minster
Edward Nalbandian, in a recent interview with Reuters, asked:
“Why sign the Protocols, if they are not going to be ratified?”
The answer is obvious: The Turkish government is interested in
creating a positive image for itself in front of the
international community by appearing to want “good neighborly
relations” with Armenia, without actually taking any concrete
steps to do so.
Armenia’s officials are sadly mistaken if
they believe that Turkey would come under intense international
pressure, should it not ratify the protocols. Time and again,
Turkey has proven its immunity from pressures applied by other
countries, including the United States, as was the case on the
eve of the Iraq war when Turkey refused to allow U.S. Troops to
cross its borders to enter Iraq.
If pressured from outside, Turkish leaders
would simply blame Armenia, by pointing out that it has not made
any concessions on Artsakh, thereby making it impossible for the
Turkish Parliament to ratify the Protocols.
Armenian officials have repeatedly stated
that the Artsakh negotiations are unrelated to the Protocols and
that the Armenian Parliament would not ratify the Protocols
before Turkey, adding that they would scrap the agreement, if
Turkey failed to act in a “timely” manner.
It remains to be seen whether Armenia would
keep its pledge of not making any territorial concessions on
Artsakh; and should Turkey refuse to ratify the Protocols after
the lapse of several months, would Armenia’s leaders have the
courage to declare the signed Protocols null and void?
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