As in previous years, Ankara did its best in 2014 to advance its ties with three regional countries -- Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia -- via bilateral, multilateral and tripartite meetings focused on political and economic issues in the region, which in fact occupy a prominent place in Turkey's foreign affairs.

Despite the balanced ties established by Turkey, which is trying to present itself as a role model with Western-NATO links in the backyard of Russia and Iran, Ankara's successful foreign affair policies rest on its relations with regional partner Azerbaijan, the region's economic powerhouse with vast energy resources that are important for turning Turkey into an energy hub and transit corridor.

To this end Ankara did not stop, but rather extended, its efforts to stir the static Turkish-Armenian ties in the last days of 2013 when the then-foreign minister, current Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, made a rare and long-awaited diplomatic initiative, visiting the capital city of Yerevan to attend the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSEC) on Dec. 12, 2013. As the first such high-level visit in five years -- since the standstill in the Zurich protocols signed in 2009 to normalize relations between Armenia and Turkey -- the visit did not yield favorable results as neither side appeared prepared to make concessions after the two-hour meeting between Davutoğlu and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan once again became a mark of Turkey's failed aspirations to emerge as a peacemaker in the region. The sealed gates between Turkey and Armenia have long been considered a significant element, particularly by leaving Armenia isolated in the region, in reaching a long-awaited resolution of the conflict that would also support ally Azerbaijan. However, so far, no positive results have been achieved and the status quo remains.

"It does not appear that Turkey had a South Caucasus policy [in 2014],” said Gerard Libaridian, an Armenian-American historian and politician who also served as an advisor to former Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan during the 1990s, the most tense time for Turkish-Armenian ties. During that period Turkey closed its borders with Armenia, breaking off all diplomatic ties in a bid to support Azerbaijan, when Armenian armed forces began seizing its territories as part of the bloody Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Since the war, Karabakh has been under the control of ethnic Armenians but their declaration of independence has not been recognized by the international community, which still considers it part of Azerbaijan. Despite the 1994 truce that officially put an end to the warfare, border skirmishes and exchanges of gunfire continue on the frontline, killing as many as 30 civilians from each side every year. Decades-long negotiations to settle the conflict, led by the OSCE Minsk Group, have so far failed.

The tense ties between Turkey and Armenia came long before the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as each side disputed what happened to the Armenians in 1915.

Libaridian says that Turkey has "a distinctly pro-Azerbaijani policy, a tolerant policy toward Georgia and a less than tolerant policy toward Armenia.” According to him, the first and third were the predominant issues in 2014 and overall there was a lack of progress, but he did call President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's April 23 pronouncement "a huge step for the Turkish government.”

Turkey made its first condolences to the Armenians for the 1915 events in the first half of 2014. Though it was regarded as promising, it was not warmly accepted by Armenians as it failed to reference the events as a genocide nor did it refer to other ethnicities who also suffered during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. To put it in Libaridian's words, "Whether one uses the term genocide or not, deportations and massacres effectuated on that scale in an organized and planned manner do not happen as if they are a natural disaster, such as a hurricane.”

In Yerevan, Richard Giragosian, the director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC), said Erdoğan's condolences were surprising and "unprecedented.”

"That statement not only offered a ‘safer space' within which to discuss the genocide issue, it also broadened the base for dialogue by sending a message not only to Armenians but also to Erdoğan's own base of supporters,” Giragosian said, adding that from now on every Turkish prime minister will be expected to make a similar statement during the April 24 commemoration of the events.

The positive atmosphere established by the condolences did not last long given Erdoğan's regular use of offensive and disparaging language to target different ethnicities and religions, with Georgians and Armenians as the main target during his presidential campaign in early August.

"They called me a Georgian,” Erdoğan said in an interview with Turkey's NTV. "Pardon me for saying this, but they said even uglier things, they called me an Armenian,” he said, adding, "As far as I have learned from my father and grandfather, I am a Turk.”

Despite these negative developments, a few weeks later Armenian Foreign Minister Nalbandyan visited Turkey for Erdoğan's inauguration, a move that suggested both leaders were interested in healing old wounds and leading their nations into a period of cooperation. However, directly after this meeting Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan said in his speech at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 24 that his government may withdraw from the Zurich protocols -- the only accords made so far to ease Turkish-Armenian troubled relations -- dealing a blow to the normalization process between the countries.

Believing the year contained enough positive efforts to at least sustain the momentum, Giragosian, however, found diplomatic engagement "meager and marginal” as there were no follow-up meetings after Davutoğlu's Yerevan trip.

Sedat Laçiner, a prominent academic and scholar of Turkey's foreign affairs, including Turkish-Armenian ties, underlined Azerbaijan's role in preventing further progress as regards the 2009 protocols, saying, "Now the alliance with Azerbaijan has taken ties with Armenia hostage.”

"Turkey's Caucasus policies towards Armenia turned into a strategic partnership with Azerbaijan and thus energy politics so that no considerable moves were experienced in 2014,” Laçiner said.

In the coming year, the 100th anniversary of the events of 1915, experts agree that Turkey has to take serious steps to change the status quo in the region. How Turkey moves forward in this process is important. If Ankara can proceed in a logical manner, rather than pulling on long-held emotional responses, it will show its willingness to finally deal with the Armenian issue in an honest and fruitful way.

 

(Today's Zaman)