Mustafa Akyol
While world leaders recalled the deportation and mass murder of Ottoman Armenians a century ago that many define as genocide, others recalled on or about April 24 a lost opportunity that could have been the start of a reconciliation between Turks and Armenians: the “football diplomacy” that began between Ankara and Yerevan in 2008, and subsequent “protocols” the two capitals signed in Zurich in October 2009.
Had that “Armenian opening” worked out, Turkey and
Armenia would have an open border and diplomatic relations. Moreover,
there could even be some convergence in the two nation’s utterly
opposite perceptions of history.
That “Armenian opening” had failed, however, like several other
openings, or olive branches, that the Justice and Development Party
(AKP) government promised to offer in its moderate pre-2011 era. (For
example, see: “The ephemeral Alevi opening.”)
But until recently, the details of why exactly the “Armenian opening”
had failed was unclear. Last week, speaking to a group of Turkish
historians he hosted at his Presidential Palace, President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan made things clearer. It was a wrong initiative by then-President Abdullah Gul, Erdogan reportedly said, as explained to the media by Mustafa Armagan,
one of the historians present at the meeting. It was wrong, because it
“gave an upper hand to the other side and paved the way for them to
exert pressure on us.”
This statement tells us a lot about the worldview of Turkey’s current
president, but first it's worth recalling what exactly had happened in
2008. Turkey and Armenia
have had no open border or diplomatic dialogue since 1993, when the
latter occupied the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, which Turkey
sees as a brotherly nation. But in September 2008, President Abdullah
Gul took an unexpected initiative to break this stalemate by visiting
Yerevan to watch a World Cup qualifying match between the Turkish and
Armenian national teams. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who warmly
hosted Gul, soon afterward came to the Turkish city of Bursa to watch
the return match. The positive mood opened the way to the protocols to normalize ties
between Turkey and Armenia, signed in Zurich on Oct. 10, 2009, by the
foreign ministers of the two countries in the presence of the foreign
ministers of France, Russia and the United States. It was an
internationally celebrated icon of the more open, confident and
reconciliatory “New Turkey” that the AKP was then promising.
Suat Kiniklioglu, an AKP deputy at the time, recently wrote a piece titled “Why Did Normalization Fail?”
explaining the behind-the-scenes of the Turkey-Armenia protocols. In
his words, “Abdullah Gul was the primary driver behind the protocols. He
had always given the process great importance. Along with him,
then-Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, and later Ahmet Davutoglu, spent
considerable energy and effort in favor of normalization.” Kiniklioglu
explained Erdogan was wary of the nationalist reaction in Turkey to the
deal, adding, “[Erdogan] had not been too keen on the process anyway, as
it was not ‘his process,’ but was very much driven by Gul.”
No wonder, just days
after the Zurich deal, Erdogan went to Baku, met with Azerbaijan
President Heydar Aliyev who opposed the deal, and gave a speech effectively killing any real prospects of a normalization process. Erdogan
said that Turkey would not move forward on the protocols, unless
Armenia withdrew its forces from the occupied Azeri territory. This was a
decent ideal, but it was also putting the cart before the horses. After
that point, Kiniklioglu noted, it became “extremely difficult to
advance the process after Erdogan had raised the bar to such a level.”
Kiniklioglu also argued that Russians acted behind the scenes as well to
sabotage the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, which could make “the
South Caucasus slip out of their hands.”
Erdogan’s statement to historians last week seemed to further confirm
that the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement was indeed an effort driven
mainly by Gul and blocked mainly by Erdogan.
The day after his initial statement about Erdogan’s take on Gul, historian Armagan spoke to the media again, and changed his earlier statement,
arguing “Erdogan in fact did not criticize Gul.” Armagan might have
“misunderstood” Erdogan’s remarks as he said, or perhaps he might have
been asked to make such a revision out of political necessity. But in
any case, the phrase in his initial statement, that the Zurich deal
“gave an upper hand to the other side and paved the way for them to
exert pressure on us” is still noteworthy — for it is very typical of
Erdogan and it tells a lot about his view of politics.
As experience has shown over the years, Erdogan’s view of politics is
based mainly on power, always preferring the show of force and defiance
over moderation and consensus. In this power-based universe, which is
not exclusive to Erdogan but common in Turkey, “political concession” is
at best naivete and more probably treason. In this view, as I explained before:
“Political concession … is not a first step
forward toward reconciliation. It is rather the first step back
toward downfall. Once the malicious people on the other side see your
concession, they will become only more invigorated and aggressive. So
you should keep them at bay by never accepting any of their demands and
showing them how tough you are.”
It's not an accident that with the total domination of the AKP by the
Erdogan line, and simultaneous exclusion of the Gul line, the
“openings” the ruling party has offered to its rivals have withered
away. Now there is only the "no more Mr. Nice Guy" AKP, created in the
image of Erdogan’s tough persona, which stands defiant against the
numerous enemies and seeks success only in decisive victories.
Those victories, however, may only be pyrrhic, and thus blissful neither for Erdogan nor his party nor Turkey.
"Al-Monitor" (www.al-monitor.com), May 11, 2015
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