Now We're Getting Somewhere, Aren't We?

I'm sorry for being away from the blog so much, but the constant state of flux Armenian international relations has been in this past year is at least partly to blame (and the fact Google Blogs is now blocked at work, where I do most of my analysis!) You see, in the run up to football diplomacy, it was easy and fun to speculate the various potential outcomes and meanings of what that truly unprecedented event was all about. News was always braking and the story took numerous twists and turns. Not long after though, the entire thing went dormant, appearing to the outside as if this diplomacy was like a shooting star which had burned too bright too soon. In actuality though, the business of bringing two age old enemies into agreement on issues is not an easy one or something you want to do out in the light of day with all sorts of radicals waiting to cut you down at every step, so the negotiations certainly continued but completely behind the scenes. In fact we saw nothing at all until suddenly, two days before April 24, a "roadmap" of an ambiguous nature was announced. We all know what happened next with Obama not keeping his pledge to say the g-word (though what we don't know if what went on, once again, behind the scenes, which I believe was deep and in the direction of solving this issue one day). After the roadmap was announced, everything went silent again with most Armenians (diasporans at least) bewildered and confused at what they were seeing from Armenia. The major complaint was that Armenia handed Turkey the ability to knock the genocide off the agenda for another year in exchange for... well for nothing apparent. Meanwhile Azerbaijan ratcheted up the heat calling on Turkey to cancel all contact with Armenia until Karabakh was solved, going to the extent of threatening it. Turkish officials indeed went to Azerbaijan to smooth things over, reassuring Azerbaijan nothing would come between them and that Armenia would be made to pay numerous concessions before anything moved forward.
Where are we today? Well everything is not as it seems because suddenly talks between Turkey and Armenia are being talked about again as if that never happened. The blow-up now appears to have been a face-saver for Azerbaijan to look like it was going to make gains as well from what otherwise would be a blow to it, as it is easy to see how rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia could be interpreted as a lose-lose situation for Azerbaijan vis-a-vis Karabakh. What has kept me from writing about any of this is the fact that the true nature of all these discussions are still hidden and it is almost impossible to know at any time how much we see is just a carefully choreographed dance between the countries (in my opinion most of it!) and what is not artificial. Most Armenians don't seem to know what to think about this, because it seems every major political party in Armenia supports the talks in theory- though of course the Dashnaks have pulled out of the government in protest of the April 22nd statement and Heritage Party found and MP Raffi Hovannisian resigned his seat in Parliament just yesterday as a response to the negotiations. As I said though, despite these moves these parties still seem to support the talks in principle, just not aspects of them as they exist today. For me, it is almost impossible to analyze what is going on because it is impossible to know what the final agreement will look like. On August 31st Turkey and Armenia formally committed to the process and said negotiations will last 6 weeks. This clearly looks extremely artificial because coincidentally football diplomacy part II is scheduled for exactly 6 weeks from now when Sargsyan is scheduled to go to a match in Turkey. To get some heat off from an angry public in the wake of football diplomacy I with little to show for it, Sargsyan said he would not go to Turkey unless the border was open or close to being opened. For most of 2009 however it looked like chances of the border being opened had become even more remote since Football Diplomacy I, not close, meaning Sargsyan would either have to break his word and go or would not be going. The President of Turkey does not make a landmark visit to Armenia for no reason though, so clearly there must have been something more to this whole thing all along. And here it is, 6 weeks to go until the match and suddenly it is announced major issues will be worked over in 6 weeks. At that point it will be up to the countries respective parliaments to pass the agreement and things should pick up from there.
Or will they? Sargsyan certainly has the power in parliament to get the agreement passed if he wants, but the question is whether Gul and Erdogan can. This fall they also will be working to make Kurdish reforms passed through parliament, which will certainly take a lot of political capital to get through. Some are of the opinion that the Armenian issue might need to be sacrificed for the sake of the Kurdish issue at the moment, but that remains to be seen. Just to prove that the wonders never cease, Today's Zaman is just reporting that Azerbaijan may also open borders with Armenia. What?! Wasn't that the country making a huge anti-Armenian fuss just a few months ago? Well of course it was, but if one attributes the real reason for Turkish-Armenian relations to it being used as an alternative transit route instead of unstable Georgia, it doesn't really do much good if travel isn't open between Azerbaijan and Armenia as well, as proposed pipelines begin there. What's interesting about this article is that it says open borders are possible if Armenia surrenders 5 regions it captured in the Karabakh war. The article implies, via an Azeri Foreign Ministry statement, that Azerbaijan is agreeable to moving forward with relations without the immediate release of Lachin and Kelbajar regions as well, leaving them until future negotiations. These two regions are the major bone of contention as if they were given up Azerbaijan would have easy access to cutting Karabakh from Armenia in the future. If true, this would be a huge leap forward towards thawing this conflict in the region.
When it comes to peace negotiations, it also bears mentioning that the whipping boy of my previous entry, Minsk Group co-chair in charge of Karabakh negotiations Matthew Bryza, will be replaced by Ambassador Robert Bradtke. Bryza might not be going far though as the long-running rumor is that he will become the US's new ambassador to Azerbaijan, meaning he will still very much be involved with this situation. In short, it is very hard to know where everything is going. After a mostly frozen years suddenly negotiations are appearing to race ahead publicly, though in fact it seems most of this was likely agreed upon at least as early as April in private. It took until shortly before the game to be the right time to start talking about it in public though as clearly this is not a popular move with many in Turkey or Armenia or the diaspora. Armenia is certainly taking a big risk and it must be extremely careful. Personally, I am trying to feel confident that we won't look back on all this as some major blunder which resulted in Armenia being taken advantage of, and I feel like in the end it won't and cannot be so, though anything is possible. Much is still left to be said and worked out publicly, so perhaps I will have a lot more to write about in the coming weeks. Until then let us all pray for a safe and peaceful process to sound agreements which are beneficial to all.

Whisper Bloody Murder?

Less than a month ago news started coming across the wires that surprised many in the Armenian-American community. A CNN press release said that it would be airing a program by their respected correspondent Christiane Amanpour, entitled, "Scream Bloody Murder," which would deal with the lack of response to genocides of the 20th century. The release specifically mentioned Armenia as one of the cases of genocide it would be examining. This naturally created some excitement that finally a major news organization would be dedicating a program partly to the so often overlooked Armenian Genocide of 1915 and inform a nationwide audience about it. Word was spread by phone and internet with many Armenian-Americans excited that the mainstream media would finally take a look at our forgotten genocide. Personally, I was a little suspicious and the day before the showed aired I found out through a source that, as I had suspected, the total time dedicated to the Armenian Genocide in this two hour program would be 45 seconds. However the many other Armenians who did not know this went into the show expecting at long last some serious interest in the plight of their ancestors from one of these many 20th century genocides. They must have been sorely disappointed. Before the show had even ended people I know were angrily posting messages of shock and disappointment that something billed as a documentary about genocide, inclusive of the Armenian case, would dedicated large portions of time to all the other cases but less than a fleeting minute to Armenia.

What's so interesting is the title of the CNN show to begin with invokes the imagery of screaming and talked to those who screamed about genocide, a notion identical to that of Carla Garapedian's Armenian Genocide documentary "Screamers". This idea of screaming about genocide to make it known was originated by Harvard scholar Dr. Samantha Power in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book "A Problem from Hell". She was featured in "Screamers" and it is hard to think that the CNN special was not at least in part inspired by Power's work based on this similarity. It bares mentioning that Power dedicated a chapter of her book on genocide to the Armenian Genocide and so one can assume that if put in charge of planning "Scream Bloody Murder" she would have found it worthy of much more screen time than 45 seconds. This is not to say that CNN should be condemned for mentioning the Armenian Genocide, but the off-handed manner in which 1915 gets mentioned (despite Armenia having been prominently billed as one of the documentary's subjects in the original press release) when the other examples of genocide each received on average the space of time through two commercial breaks seems to imply it is a lesser example or somehow not central to the subject of genocide.

Flying in the face of this conception though is the fact mentioned in the documentary that 1915 inspired Lemkin to coin the word genocide and really got him thinking about the crime in the first place. As one can see in the documentary Screamers or Power's book, there was no lack of screaming going on in the Armenian case either. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau's story is a now legendary example of someone who stood up to the very face of genocide and tried to scream about it to the world. This screaming reached its way to the top, as evidenced by this article regarding Secretary of State at the time William Jennings Bryan, but unfortunately it couldn't be stopped. Other screamers included Consul Leslie A. Davis who told tales of genocide which sound frighteningly similar to those which occurred later in Rwanda and Cambodia as mentioned in "Scream Bloody Murder". Even though the Armenian Genocide is over its effect and the fact it is unrecognized by Turkey still resound today in the highest levels of world affairs, geopolitics, and is quite relevant to our world today even though it is almost a hundred years in the past. Just a few years ago former US Ambassador to Armenia John Evans was fired by the State Department for screaming proper recognition of the genocide. This story compliments those mentioned by CNN, such as that of Canadian general in Rwanda Romeo Dallaire, of those who screamed and paid the price (and is a unique twist in that this scream was so long after the genocide happened as opposed to while it was going on).

Despite being largely overlooked, the Armenian Genocide was even referenced in the Genocide Convention covered by Amanpour as having finally put into law the crime of genocide. While it is too late now to go back and create a new segment on the Armenian Genocide to place in the already aired documentary, that does not mean CNN has no way of rectifying this error. I had been feeling hopeful about the documentary and might have given it more of a pass on this omition until I saw this interactive map on the section of Scream Bloody Murder section of CNN's website about the world's killing fields. It appears that despite the fact when it had first been announced Armenia was prominently mentioned as one of the examples of genocide that would be covered, it failed to even be pinpointed on the interactive map as an example of genocide. This is a very strange thing to ponder since one would assume if the Armenian Genocide is mentioned in the promotional material it'd be listed on this interactive map. This seems to compound the insult of being only mentioned for 45 seconds in the documentary to being completely forgotten on their world map of genocides and makes me question what went on behind the scenes. Perhaps they found it too provocative to pinpoint a NATO ally such as Turkey and decided that since marking the Armenian Genocide would mean marking Turkey it'd be best to just leave Armenia off despite the fact it is even mentioned in the documentary? Despite the fact it says almost nothing about the Armenian Genocide, Scream Bloody Murder hasn't gone unnoticed in Turkey after all, as this Turkish newspaper article from Hurriyet yesterday makes clear: "Genocide feature worrisome"

Whatever the case, this oversight is extremely unfortunate and Armenians and Americans alike should take CNN to task. American officials were the first to scream out in the 20th century – a proud fact swept under the rug. Besides letting CNN know they should have paid more attention to the original example of 20th century genocide in their documentary, it can show its good faith immediately by placing the Armenian Genocide on their website's interactive map as it deserves. For an otherwise well-done documentary on the importance of screaming bloody murder whenever and wherever it happens, this blank spot over Turkey doubles as a shameful and bloody stain.
To write to CNN, or to post your question for Christiane Amanpour, take action here:
http://capwiz.com/aaainc/issues/alert/?alertid=12278316

Turkish Vignettes from Yerevan or: Where Do We Go From Here?

After what must have been an interesting weekend on the streets of Yerevan with numerous interactions between Armenians and Turks, officials and regular citizens, it is now time to sit back and see where things go from here. I felt we'd be hearing at least some token changes and agreements between Armenia and Turkey early on though the speed of the negotiations towards major decisions is a total unknown. The reaction in the press regarding the visit has surprisingly been almost universally positive. Even the Dashnaks welcomed the rapprochement, underscoring the important of recognition of the genocide first though. The only rain on the parade has been the Turkish opposition parties who have maintained a populist hard-line position against any sort of negotiation with Armenia until it jumps through numerous impossible hoops. Relations between AKP and the opposition are downright icy with AKP delivering various government-related documents to them via regular mail of all things while defending the trip to Armenia. It is almost funny for Armenians, especially in the diaspora, to imagine this Turkish government supporting Armenia while opposing fellow Turks but that's politics for you.

Armenialiberty just released an interview with Turkish Economist writer Amberin Zaman about what will come next which I think is a very good guide of what to expect with these very unprecendented turn of events. While some people hope for an immediate opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, Zaman rightfully points out that the border was closed in the first place due to the Karabakh conflict and therefore will not be open until some substantive progress can be pointed to on the issue. Though the border will not be opened yet, she does point out the possibility of the Kars-Gyumri rail link being restarted, and it bears noting that there have been reports of repairs having recently begun on the Armenian side to that long-closed line in case Turkey allows for it. This would be for humanitarian reasons regarding the conflict in Georgia which would do good there while allowed for an ease in Armenian-Turkish restrictions. Regarding the match itself, Zaman said: "I believe that the visit went extremely smoothly. I had the opportunity to actually see both presidents during halftime. They seemed incredibly relaxed, very happy, they sounded extremely cordial and the messages that we heard after the match from both sides were extremely positive". So as Zaman points out, Azerbaijan is the major key in Turkey starting relations with Armenia. This is likely why Gul's next visit after Armenia was to Azerbaijan where he and other Turkish figures have been trying to reassure them that this is not a betrayal and to let them know Armenia is ready for serious negotiations. Not long ago Turkey as a serious moderator in the Karabakh conflict seemed like a ridiculous pipe dream but now it seems Sargsyan has given the go-ahead to just that. A fair resolution to Karabakh is in Turkey's interests because it will free them to have more open relations with Armenia, and Azerbaijan's strong reaction against the Yerevan visit should give hope that Turkey can be a fair negotiator, but let's just hope this isn't Armenia being backed into a corner on Karabakh due to its vulnerable position. Turkey is organizing a meeting between themselves, Azerbaijan, and Armenia at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly later this month so if we can expect a new major development it'll likely be after that meeting.

From what I read in the press, except for the booing of the Turkish national anthem the Turkish visitors were pleasantly surprised by the warm reception they received in Yerevan and how they had no safety concerns. They were greeted nicely and all are reporting back positively of Yerevan and relations with Armenia. If Hrant Dink was the first crack against Turkish taboos this visit seems to have broken down an entire portion of the wall, not just because it was the biggest visit of Turks to Armenia since... well probably since the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 but because of the numerous intriguing vignettes which have come out of it. One example is the report that a total of 300 visiting Turkish citizen visited the Genocide Museum (not sure if that number includes Turkish-Armenians, which would be far less momentous, but I doubt they'd be counted). As Armenpress reports: "Many of the Turkish visitors at the museum were students, sports fans, and NGO representatives. He said many of them visited the museum out of curiosity, with varying reactions to the exhibits, including sympathy, remorse, regret and denial." They were especially by a new exhibit on Armenian contributions to Ottoman Sports. The most talked about visitor to the museum was Hasan Jemal, grandson of Jemal Pasha of the Young Turk triumvirate, who laid flowers at the memorial and proposed a moment of silence before the game in memory of the victims (which I assume didn't happen as President Gul said there was no mention of 1915 his whole trip). We have to be careful how Jemal's behavior is interpreted because I don't think it can be portrayed as being a unilateral "recognize the Armenian Genocide" sort of thing. He had written a book "Let's Respect Each Other's Pains" which seems to imply he has equivocation view on 1915 with all things being equal, not a totally uncommon view among Turks so it's hard to know how he feels. Either way though such a gesture should be highlighted and taken to heart because it certainly seems to be a great leap forward.

Another interesting story to come out of this weekend is an interview in Taraf newspaper with retired Turkish diplomat Volkan Vural. Vural recounted his relations with Armenia early in its independence and how he sees that early period as a missed opportunity for Turkey to start relations with Armenia. He believes many of the problems between the nations today such as Karabakh could have been mitigated through relations from the beginning, as Ter-Petrosian was willing, however concludes that the genocide taboo and Azeri pressure got the better of the Turkish government. In an arena like this where single words can have huge meaning we have to be careful with translations, but hopefully the one I am referencing is accurate. When asked about what Turkey can do to make amends for the genocide, Vural speculates that if he was in charge he'd allow all Armenians who wanted Turkish citizenship to be able to attain it and a right of return. While he rightfully notes that very few if any will actually take up this offer it's a start. He advocates starting a fund to deal with the incredibly complicated issue of property and asset lost by the deportees. He also states that Turkey should apologize for the events. "These events are unbecoming for Turkey. We do not approve them. The people who were forced to leave this country have our sympathy. We see them as our brothers. If they wish, we are prepared to admit them to Turkish citizenship."

These are the types of sentiments which were never uttered even a few years ago and only a few brave Turks started standing up in the past few years. I hope vignettes like these indicate a larger flood of such sentiment coming from Turkish society and gives hope that more Jemals and Vurals will stand up for what is right, helping to bring a century of pain to a close.

Football Game of the Century Recap

The long awaited game has come and gone and when I see pictures like the one above I still have to wonder if it really happened. For those who don't know, the remarkable picture above taken by a friend Gor Zakaryan shows the top of the stadium decked out with a Turkish and Armenian flag directly below the tall spire of the Genocide Memorial. To imagine this scene just a couple years ago would be absolutely unthinkable and it is still rather hard to believe. How does it make us feel? As a diasporan I know there are many conflicting feelings about it, though overall I haven't seen a whole lot of diasporan discussion on it either way. While many knew about the game I wouldn't be surprised if it passed unnoticed by a good deal of some of our more Turkophobic members who will one day see these pictures of Gul and Sargsyan shaking hands in the Yerevan presidential palace and... well I don't know how they'd react but dumbfounded is the first word which springs to mind. Regarding the picture above, as a diasporan it does make me feel a bit sad that certain things came at the expense of pushing others into the background, as is literally depicted here, but I know this had to come first. Those like the ANC who unsurprisingly advocated that Gul should visit the genocide memorial, a move also proposed in a mocking manner by Deniz Baykal of the Ataturkist opposition party CHP. I feel a little bit cynical that it was economics which made this all happen, not those lofty ideals of truth or justice or what have you. Once again though, as Baykal makes clear this was not an easy nor popular move for Gul and we as Armenians couldn't make it any harder for him than it already was. I remain hopeful that as the thaw continues and such initiatives as that highly controversial historical commission apparently move forward, entering it with somewhat thawed relations instead of the extremely contentous animosity which has been the hallmark of 90 years means that perhaps we can begin to bring them around. A couple things are for sure:

1. Turks have a stubborn pride characteristic of this region where things like justice are seen as a weakness. Giving even a little on an issue is easily seen as leading to an emasculating domino effect which is unacceptable for them. Not to be stereotypical or cliche, and Turks certainly aren't the only ones like this, but Turkish policy up until now certainly would cut off their nose to spite their face. That's why in the face of genocide resolution after resolution they only became more irrational and no matter how bad it made them look they kept banging their heads into the same old wall of denial getting absolutely nowhere. The AKP party came to power and instituted some new creative ideas to a very old game. I don't know what they see the endgame of this joint commission as, a cleaner method to get the inevitable accepted at home or some sort of last ditch effort to throw mud on the diaspora's momentum and a way to hopefully get at least a few of their opposing ideas canonized- but it is clear that the conclusion of this commission if worth anything cannot be anything but that it was genocide. So does that mean it will be worthless?

2. The diaspora will not give up. One could certainly argue that this is the Turkish government attempting to step around the intractible diaspora by going directly to the extremely vulnerable Armenian government and cutting out the diaspora. They hope the Armenian government 'good cop' will help this genocide unpleasantness go away by giving them a few token gifts (like opening a border which always should have been open). What they don't realize is the diaspora has a mind of its own and even if the Armenian government dropped all claims, the diaspora isn't going anywhere. In fact, it was the diaspora that was created by the genocide and are the ones who they really should be answering to, Serzh Sargsyan didn't have ancestors killed or deported from their villages in 1915. Of course dealing with the diaspora isn't palatable for the Turkish government- and seeing the angry public opinion at home I do concede 'how could they anyway?' I think the best thing for the diaspora to do is watch how this goes between the governments and assess the results. No reason to stand in its way, the diaspora must and will remain strong but at the same time should adopt this spirit of friendship. There's nothing I hate more than stories of Armenians in the diaspora meeting Turks and saying something mean or irrational at them as soon as they hear they are a Turk. That's small minded and applying the same sort of racist idealogy on them as the Young Turks did to our ancestors.

Sorting out history is not a fun and sometimes very dreary thing, I'm glad we could have some fun playing football while we're at it. The much-anticipated game wasn't all that great in my opinion. While the Armenians held off a score during the first half, they were being very defensive. When they came back on the field after the half the Armenians appeared to have lost all their energy and were pretty easily finished off 0-2. Another surprise was the apparent emptiness of the stadium for such an anticipated game. Stories I've heard from past qualifiers were of full (and extremely rowdy bordering on anarchic) crowds. Certain areas were full and the crowd was certainly invigorated, but very conspicuous areas were empty besides the guarded Turkish section. According to one news report the once expensive tickets were allegedly being given away for free at game time, however perhaps the emptiness was by design to avoid pandemonium. Sure enough I just talked to a friend who was at the game and she said the government purposely didn't sell many of the tickets because they didn't have the security for it.

While the Armenian team was the game's loser, I didn't feel a great sense of loss because I think both sides hopefully will come out on top in an era of renewed relations. The biggest loser of the day was Dashnaktsoutyoon who- in a most schizophrenic manner- managed to remain a part of the ruling government and yet protested the government's invitation to Gul. I don't know how to feel, in part I think why spoil a nice day of peace with a protest but then again I think it would show weakness to allow him to waltz right into Yerevan without a reminder of why he hasn't been there already. The protest was apparently poorly organized and not well attended (perhaps thanks to the delay tactics I previously wrote I believe Gul exhibited even though he probably knew he was going long ago). Dashnaks showed they really don't know what their doing as a party in Armenia anymore, if you are going to protest the government as a party then get out of the ruling coalition! The protests seemed to make the headline of all the international news coverage however, leading me to believe they either made an impression or more likely those international outlets went there to find that story.

The long-awaited party in Yerevan is at an end- but what is next? Not much information has been released about the meeting or the future but Foreign Minister Babajan stayed behind to work out future steps. According to Hurriyet these steps could include: "raising the level of regular consulting mechanism to foreign ministers, speeding up efforts to form a joint commission and opening the border for humanitarian aid." If anything, seeing some of the signs held by Turkish fans calling for brotherhood, open borders, and seeing the names Armenia and Turkey next to each other were a nice reminder of how things could be in an 'East of Igdir' age (and I do feel quite sad they had to sit their while their national anthem was booed, though it is a sports rivalry and I'm not convinced the majority of spectators in Turkey wouldn't have done the same to us. Let's hope that was a catharsis and won't be repeated if Turks come again.) This should not be at the expense of our past but getting reaquainted on a person-to-person and even nation-to-nation level. We will never work it out as long as emnity remains. By interaction with Turks we will be able to remember they are humans again and that we once lived together. We cannot protest and scream at the into realizing that. I feel true justice, if it comes, will only be because of yesterday's steps, not in spite of them, and regardless of what comes of Gul's whole Armenian excursion that is an encouraging thought.