Just as the Israelis and particularly the Zionists have used and indeed abused the horrors of the holocaust to define themselves in the modern world, so the Armenians have used an earlier genocide by the Ottoman Empire to position themselves in world affairs.
However even though the Ottoman authorities, like Hitler and his Nazis, have been consigned to the dustbin of history, Armenians still campaign to have a full disclosure of the events that took place in Eastern Turkey, initially at the close of the 19th century but most spectaculary after 1917 when, encouraged by Russian Bolsheviks, Armenians rose up against an Ottoman Empire already reeling from a series of defeats throughout the Arab world.
All this history now becomes relevant because for the first time it seems that Turkey and the now independent former Soviet Republic of Armenia are having serious talks about normalizing relations.
Last month Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ismail Cem met with his Armenian opposite number Vartan Oskanian, during an international meeting in Iceland’s capital Reykjavik. Their informal discussions covered a number of issues which led Turkey to close its border with Armenia.
Some reports suggested that Turkey’s preconditions for the creation of normal relations remain unchanged. They want the Armenian government in Yerevan to lay off the anti-Turkish genocide propaganda, drop its constitutional claims to Turkish territory, withdraw its troops from Azeri territory seized during the nasty conflict over Nagorno Karabak and allow a secure corridor through its territory to permit Azerbaijan to link to its little Western enclave of Nakhichevan.
Other reports however suggest that the two foreign ministers got on well and that no preconditions were made by either side, in advance of their next encounter on June 25. Officials from both countries are meeting to seek out points for discussion.
It seems that these talks represent a major change in Ankara’s policy.
At a low level the US State Department has long argued that the standoff between the two countries was counterproductive. The trigger for Cem’s visit may however lie in Turkey’s worsening relations with the Azeri government, who some official sources claim have been supporting Kurdish insurgents within Turkey.
In what was probably a calculated snub to the government, last month when Turkish Deputy Premier Bahceli visited Baku, he went out of his way to speak to most of the opposition parties.
There is much that could sabotage any Turco-Armenian rapprochement, not the least of which is domestic political instability in Yerevan. Parliament there has just gone into its summer recess with opposition legislators furious that the speaker denied them a chance to move impeachment proceedings against the president.
But Turkey is absolutely right to open the door, even if only a little. It has too important a role to play in the region’s future. Hopefully the Armenians will agree to let history take care of itself.
