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By Lisa Schaefer (JTW)
On December 2, 2010, USAK hosted a workshop in cooperation with Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung for Turkey titled “The Turkish Armenian Relations: One Year after the Protocols”. Experts and researchers from Armenia, Turkey and Germany are participated into the conference to discuss the current situation in Turkish-armenian relations and to bring up some ideas on steps to be taken in order to improve further developments.
Jan Senkyr, Resident Representative of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung for Turkey; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sedat Laciner, General Coordinator of USAK; and Retired Ambassador Ömer Engin Lütem made the opening speeches. They emphasized the importance of this meeting as Turkish-Armenian relations were in a “freezing zone” at the moment following the “soccer diplomacy” of 2008 that seemed in the beginning to normalize the relations between the two countries in long term.
The first speech of the workshop was given by Alexander Iskandaryan, Director of the Caucasus Institute, titled “The Current Status of Armenia-Turkey Relations: A View from Armenia”. Iskandaryan outlined the incentives for both sides to keep on with the dialogue.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mitat Celikpala, Head of International Relations Department of Kadir Has University, made a speech titled “Why the Protocols have not been adopted? Expectations, Claims and Problems”. Celikpala highlighted different points of view on peace, stability and normalization of the relations as a major obstacle against the process of normalizing the inter-state linkages.
Kayan Soyak, Co-Chairman of the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council, stated that a non-governmental discourse is also important to satisfy both sides and to bring forward the current state of dialogue whereas also the influence of Russia and Azerbaijan needs to be taken into account with regard to further developments.
The speeches of the first session of the workshop ended with Prof. Dr. Umit Ozdag, Director of the 21st Century Institute. He suggested that both countries need to think of their mutual aims, sacrifices and interests before their relations could recover. Ozdag said that the relations are not bilateral in nature, but consists of the actors of Azerbaijan and the Armenian diaspora which should not be neglected.
The conference continued with presentation of Dr. Artak Shakaryan begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting, Turkey Program Manager of the Eurasia Partnership Foundation. Dr. Shakaryan stated that the process of democratization within Armenia gave a voice to the people also in terms of the relations with Turkey. Artak Shakaryan begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting mentioned that the Armenian society did basically have a positive attitude towards the improvement of the relations with Turkey, but withdrew its support due to the “top-down method” applied by Armenian officials, meaning that their opinions and feelings concerning the topic were not considered by the political side. Shakaryan said that the “willingness and giving priority” of the Turkish government are crucial for giving the dialogue a dynamic impetus.
Retired Ambassador Omer Engin Lutem stated that the major obstacles against the future configuration of Turkish-Armenian Relations are the decisions by the Armenian Constitutional Court tracing back to Article 11 of the Armenian Declaration of Independence with reference to the question of the recognition of the Turkish-Armenian borders and the so-called genocide issue. Lutem plead for the negotiation of a new agreement between the two parties as the existing ones were not sufficient and recommended that such a new agreement should be held very short, containing the establishment of diplomatic relations and up to four points on common aims to be fulfilled in the near future.
During the ensuing discussions, Alexander Iskandaryan pointed out that opening the borders should not be a question of “being a bad guy or being a good guy” in the 21st century, and instead should be treated as a norm.
The conference was ended with the closing remarks of Jan Senkyr following a question-answer session. |
Akgün Medya