Armenians Take Stock of Turkey Peace Deal

Hundreds of Armenians have gathered to discuss the impending peace deal with Turkey at testy town hall meetings all over the country.



The two countries’ borders have been closed to each others’ trade and citizens for almost the entire post-Soviet period. Turks accuse Armenia of aiding the occupation of their allies in Azerbaijan, while Armenians accuse Turkey of failing to recognise the deaths of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 as genocide.



Over the last year, however, a more pragmatic tone has dominated relations, and two protocols are due to be signed on October 10, according to the Turkish press, that will pave the way for the border to open, trade to resume, and diplomatic ties to be restored.



The deal has been a hot topic in Armenia, where citizens are divided between welcoming the material possibilities of the deal, and worrying about the moral compromises involved.



Mayranush, a resident of the north-eastern town of Gyumri, expressed the fears of many by citing a racist anti-Turkish comment from a 19th century Armenian novelist. She was speaking in one of a number of discussion groups set up by the International Center for Human Development, ICHD, a non-governmental organisation based in Yerevan.



But the opposite point of view was just as frequent, with many debaters seeing the peace deal as key to ending their country’s isolation and its reliance on the precarious trade route through Georgia.



“With the opening of the border, our situation will also improve, trade will be activated, and this will bring an economic benefit to Gyumri first of all,” said one debater called Gagik.



Since Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan is also closed – as a result of the dispute over Nagorny Karabakh, which is ruled by Armenians as a self-proclaimed independent state – the potential opening of the Turkish border is hugely significant for Armenia. Its over-reliance on Georgia was exposed last year, when the brief Russia-Georgian war left Armenia all but cut off from its markets in Russia.



However, the historical bitterness caused by the deaths of Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire linger, and Turkey’s refusal to recognise them as a genocide is a hot political topic to this day.



The ICHD tried to encourage participants in the debates, which took place in 14 towns across Armenia in the week starting September 28, to be as forthright as possible.



“The more people keep quiet, the fewer opinions there will be. Try to create at your tables an atmosphere like that of a family,” Tevan Poghosian, ICHD executive director, told the participants of each debate. He later said he was pleased with the results.



“They argued, discussed their positions and expressed their fears. This was our main aim, to give people the chance to express their viewpoints,” he said after the debate.



At the discussion in Yerevan, a dominating fear was that Turkish businessmen would buy up all Armenian land, and end up dominating the country. The Armenian government, they feared, was so desperate to improve the country’s parlous economic state that it would do anything to appease investors.



“I am against concessions. How can our government do this? You can always find ways to make money, but how can they be prepared to make concessions?” asked Tigran, an economist in Yerevan.



“The Turks will fool us, whether we sign the documents or not. We must keep our eyes open, but we must sign the documents and move forward.”



A number of opposition parties have opposed the peace deals, as have members of the Armenian diaspora, much of which is descended from people who fled the Ottoman Empire and ended up in Europe, North America, the Middle East or elsewhere.



Some participants at the Yerevan discussions speculated that opening the border, and thus pandering to local business interests, rather than those of Armenians worldwide, risked cutting the country off from its global network, and turning it into an adjunct of Turkey.



They asked if it was worth paying that price, just to benefit the wealthy who currently dominate the Armenian economy.



“Maybe we are already paying that price,” said one of the organisers of the debate.



“If we start having relations with Turkey, we will lose the diaspora,” responded Paruyr Amirjanian, an economist in Yerevan.



The Yerevan discussion was the largest, with 267 of the total 1,251 attendees. The majority of them approved of opening the borders, and Poghosian was confident that the results of the events showed Armenians want a change.



“They are in favour of opening the border, but do not hide their fears of this,” he said.



The three parties in parliament that support President Serzh Sarkisian have already said they will help push the protocols through, meaning the peace deal should become law.



“The documents will enter into force only if both sides ratify them,” said Poghosian after the ICHD’s discussions, but he was not confident parliament would consider the people’s concerns before going ahead with ratification.



“We have presented all of our findings before ratification, but only after ratification will the protocols be implemented. Only then will the worries and demands of the population be taken into account.”



Hasmik Hambardzumian, Yeranuhi Soghoian, Naira Bulghadarian work for www.panorama.am, www.hetq.am and Radio Liberty respectively.