OPERATION ZURICH-2

Much water has flown under the bridge since just over a year ago, on 10 October 2009, the Zurich Protocols were signed with great fanfare, and with the OSCE Minsk co-chairmen in attendance. The Protocols were intended to normalise Armenian-Turkish relations and were to lead finally to the opening of the border between Turkey and Armenia.

Earlier the USA and Europe had repeatedly raised the issue of the closed border with Ankara. However, in reply the Turkish authorities insisted that Armenia first abandon territorial claims on Azerbaijan and Turkey, and also drop the obsession with forcing Turkey to recognise the fabricated "genocide of Armenians".

Unfortunately, disregarding Ankara's reasonable responses, the West initiated "football diplomacy", having finally achieved the signing of the so-called Zurich Protocols. It was, however, clear from the outset that these documents were doomed to failure.

Firstly, tough reactions from official Baku, the Azerbaijani and Turkish public and also from the opposition in Turkey, put Ankara and the project's initiators at a disadvantage. Without substantial developments in the process of resolving the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, the initiative to open the borders, which were closed because of the occupation of the Azerbaijani territories by Armenia, was a nonsense. And the Turkish parliament could not ratify the protocols in this context.

Secondly, the position of Armenia itself, especially of the Armenian Diaspora, doomed this process to impasse. The Armenian brotherhood does not intend to remove the "the Armenian genocide" from the agenda or recognize the existing borders with Turkey. These two questions are for the Armenian brotherhood "a political brand" and a sacred cow, which it is always possible to milk as soon as other arguments dry up.

Thus it was clear from the outset that the Yerevan parliament, under strong pressure from the Diaspora, would not ratify the Zurich Protocols, which read unequivocally that the signatories recognize existing borders and agree to the creation of an international commission of independent scientists to study the historical past (i.e. an authentic study of the question of "the Armenian genocide" - author).

The forecasts proved to be accurate; the Constitutional Court of Armenia swiftly passed a decision on the inadmissibility of these two questions being subject to discussion. Besides, Armenia declared initially that it would begin the process to ratify the protocols in parliament only after they were ratified in the Turkish parliament. At the same time, the whole Armenian brotherhood is trying to convince the world that it sets no preconditions to solving this problem.

It is strange that these facts are ignored at times even by such eminent experts as Nikolay Zlobin, director of the European and Asian Programmes of the US Institute for World Security. "For Armenia it (the signing of the Zurich Protocols, R +) was an important step - to try to open a door to Turkey. Thereby, Armenia positioned itself as a progressive country, able to live with modern ideas without focusing on injustice and a crime committed a century ago. It seems to me that it is important not to be hostages to the past and not to make people living now hostages to what was in the past", he said early in October in Yerevan.

At the same time, in his opinion, Turkey wasn't ready for this process, and the international community has the same understanding of what happened. We think that, instead of puzzling over how to improve the situation of "hostage to fortune" Armenia and putting new obstacles in the way of Turkish membership of the EU, Europe should think seriously about a settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, which is one of the main obstacles to the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. And also about how to make Yerevan refrain from its aggressive policy and territorial claims on almost all adjacent countries. Only in this case is it possible to drag the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations out of impasse. 

But the West, probably not wishing to offend the Armenian Diaspora, has decided to follow the line of least resistance, and increase pressure on Turkey. As a result, Ankara faced a squall of resolutions on recognition of the so-called "genocide of Armenians", and the process of normalising relations with Armenia has developed into a complex of problems in Turkey's relations with the USA and Europe.

Quite recently, information about attempts to revive the Zurich process has been leaked to the press, and the mass media has even dubbed this process operation Zurich-2. In early October the Turkish newspaper Hurriyyet reported that Switzerland had now turned to "telephone diplomacy", aspiring to renew the dialogue between Turkey and Armenia.

"Some time ago, the Swiss side contacted us and notified us of its intentions. As far as we know, Bern has also addressed Yerevan with the same request. For our part, we answered that it is no problem for us to continue the negotiations and that the freezing of the process was not initiated by Turkey, but by Armenia," a diplomatic source told Hurriyyet.

Another Turkish newspaper, Sabah, says that the Presidents of Armenia and Turkey, Serzh Sargsyan and Abdullah Gul, might meet in Astana for a continuation of the dialogue on 1 December, during the OSCE summit.

True, these reports were denied by the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, who said that official negotiations weren't being conducted with Armenia now, as there had been no telephone conversation with the Swiss intermediaries.

But the lack of official negotiations doesn't mean that the process is completely frozen. For ulterior motives, information was leaked to the press that negotiations on a resumption of the Armenian-Turkish process had been held in Rome, where Armenia was represented by the former foreign minister, Vardan Oskanyan, and Zhirayr Liparityan, former adviser to the first president of Armenia L. Ter-Petrosyan. They were, apparently, not operating in an official capacity, but they enjoy great political status as pro-western politicians.

The conclusion that there is a certain level of dialogue between the parties nevertheless arises from the opinions of Turkish officials. "The process will be continued until peace is established in the Caucasus. We met the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland and Azerbaijan at the United Nations. Armenia is also our neighbour. Our position on the Caucasus is clear. The Armenian-Turkish dialogue has not stopped and Ankara intends to continue the process of normalising relations with Yerevan," said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Thus, he has accurately let it be known that Turkey still considers the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations to be an integral part of universal peace in the Caucasus, which cannot be attained without a settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict according to the norms of international law.

But is the West ready to promote this by forcing Yerevan to peace? To answer this question, we will look at the manner and the background of these attempts to resume the Zurich process.

As in the first round, the mediator for Armenian-Turkish dialogue is Switzerland - a country which has not only recognized "the Armenian genocide" but also a country where denial of this "fact" is a criminal offence. Is it possible, then, to rely on impartial mediation from Switzerland, which claims to be neutral (?!) on this issue?

For its part, under pressure from the Armenian Diaspora, the USA has not been able to decide on the appointment of an ambassador to Azerbaijan for almost a year and a half. However, in March this year, the Committee on International Relations of the US House of Representatives very swiftly adopted a resolution recognizing "the Armenian genocide".

It emerges that the world's major power, which aims to extend its model of democracy all over the world, is dependent in many respects upon lobbyists and congressmen who are engaged in veiled bribery. As a result of their "activity", the USA government gives annual financial support to the aggressor Armenia and a separatist regime in Nagornyy Karabakh (NK), without worrying at all about what it is spent on.

Washington should have noticed that this "humanitarian" aid is mainly spent on the militarization of Armenia and the Armenian separatists in Nagornyy Karabakh, and also towards international recognition of the so-called "Nagornyy Karabakh republic" as testified by the regime's intermediate-term programme for state expenditure, 2010-2013. And on the day of the declaration of "independence" by the unrecognized NKR, the Armenian separatists' "head of parliament", Ashot Gulyan, received a warm reception on Capitol Hill, together with Armenia's ambassador to the USA, Tatul Markaryan.

Moreover, they made speeches there, alongside pro-Armenian congressmen, on the solemn event celebrated that day in a hall of the US Congress. Washington hurried to assure Baku that this voyage was a "private visit by citizens of Armenia" and that the USA recognizes neither the Nagornyy Karabakh separatist regime nor "the Karabakh parliamentarians".

A 'private' visit is fine, but this delegation was also welcomed by Robert Bradtke, co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, and Howard Berman, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US House of Representatives, who played a key role in the committee's recognition of "the Armenian genocide".

Meanwhile, Washington displays a completely opposite approach towards the territorial problems of another South Caucasus state - Georgia. Addressing a session of the Georgian-American commission on strategic partnership recently, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once again urged Russia to withdraw its military contingent from the territory of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which she called the occupied Georgian territories. She noted that the USA was unshakable in its support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia and was ready to take action to support that position.

For some reason, a similar adherence to principles isn't shown on the question of maintaining the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. This despite the fact that the USA has supported all four resolutions of the United Nations calling on Armenia to release the occupied Azerbaijan lands unconditionally.

Azerbaijan is merely told to be content with the conclusions of various missions and commissions and to continue negotiations with an aggressor ad infinitum, ostensibly to achieve consensus. And as soon as Baku steps up the pressure in the negotiating process, demanding that the co-chairmen and international organizations intensify their efforts and adhere to principles, the West suddenly remembers the Turkish-Armenian dialogue.

It is possible that the Azerbaijan-Turkish contract on strategic partnership and mutual support, and the agreement to establish an Azerbaijan-Turkish Council on Strategic Cooperation, signed in August and September, "helped" the West to remember the closed Armenian-Turkish border.

Meanwhile, the course of events shows that even if Ankara does not link the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border to the Nagornyy Karabakh issue, Armenia and the Armenian brotherhood will never remove the "Armenian genocide" and territorial claims on Turkey from the agenda. And the West will not want to lose such an effective means of pressure upon Ankara - an influential geopolitical player.

Without this there will hardly be any political force in Turkey that dares open the borders with Armenia, which would be equivalent to capitulation. Representatives of some political parties, among whom there are influential figures from the ruling party, are now considering the necessity of cancelling the Armenian-Turkish Protocols. This may be a serious warning to those who have started operations codenamed Zurich-2.