ArmeniaNow Chief Editor
Three days before his meeting with Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, United States President Barack Obama has vowed his country’s support of “normalization” between Turkey and Armenia.
And in wording that many on either side of the Turkey-Armenia foreign policy protocol debate may find significant, the president used the phrase “without preconditions”.
“I agree that normalization between Armenia and Turkey should move forward without preconditions and within a reasonable timeframe,” Obama wrote, in a letter to Hirair Hovnanian, chairman of the Armenian Assembly of America released Thursday. Obama is scheduled to meet Erdogan in Washington, D.C., on Monday.
The letter (dated November 20) was a reply to a September 9 message to the president from the Assembly, the Armenian General Benevolent Union and two U.S dioceses of the Armenian Apostolic Church. In their joint statement to the president, the institutions urged the United States to urge Turkey against linking “normalization” to a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that would favor Turkish ally Azerbaijan.
Echoing sentiments of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama wrote that his government would “continue to vigorously support the normalization effort in the months ahead.”
Arpi Vartanian, Assembly Country Director, Armenia & Nagorno Karabakh said it is “absolutely significant” that Obama’s letter referenced “without preconditions”.
“It is imperative that Turkey normalize relations and open its borders with Armenia (which it closed in response to pressure from Azerbaijan) without preconditions,” Vartanian said. “In other words, Armenia-Turkey relations should not be linked to the settlement of the NK peace process. They should not be linked to recognition, or non-recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the United States, or any other nation.”
A considerably different view of Obama’s wording is held, however, by a chief representative of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnakstutyun), whose interest are represented in Washington by its advocacy agency, the Armenian National Committee of America.
Giro Manoyan, Director of the International Secretariat of the ARF Bureau in Yerevan, says Obama’s words should be measured in the reality that “preconditions” have already been included in the protocols signed by Armenia and Turkey on October 10.
“It is simply indecent to say that the relations must develop without preconditions, taking into consideration the fact that two of the three main preconditions are already included in the protocols and are already signed (meaning the recognition of the border and territorial integrity),” Manoyan told ArmeniaNow, adding, however, that such statements may have some influence and pressure on Turkey to not directly bind “normalization” with the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.
In their letter, the Assembly, AGBU and the Church called upon Obama to honor his pledge for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, expressing the anxiety of some that the “normalization process” might become a “smokescreen” that distracts from and damages chances of recognition. Should that happen, the leaders stated in their letter: “it will be a blow to the rapprochement process and the expectations of people of goodwill everywhere”.
Consistent with United States policy, Obama did not use the word “genocide” in reference to the Armenian Genocide.
“My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts,” he wrote. “I believe that the best way to advance that goal is for the Armenian and Turkish people to address the facts of the past as part of their efforts to move forward.”
ArmeniaNow.com
I made the following comment on the site:
Giro Manoyan: In my phone interview with the ArmeniaNow reporter, when stating that two of the three Turkish preconditions are met in the Armenia-Turkey October 10, 2009, protocols, I meant (as reported in John Hughes' story) "the recognition of the border and territorial integrity" and (and this is not mentioned in Hughes' piece) the precondition to refrain from pursuing the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, which in the second Armenia-Turkey protocol is accomplished by the formation of the sub-commission of experts to deal with the "historical dimension."
I had also stated that in June 2008, that is before the "football diplomacy" began, the US had officially and publicly repeated at least one of the Turkish preconditions by stating (Daniel Fried, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, June 18, 2008): “Armenia must be ready to acknowledge the existing border and disavow any claim on the territory of modern Turkey.”
Finally, I had told the ArmeniaNow reporter that only after the Armenia-Turkey protocols were initialed, the US on April 22, 2009, started to claim that (Robert Wood, Acting US State Department Spokesman): "It has long been and remains the position of the United States that normalization should take place without preconditions and within a reasonable timeframe."
I think all this is relevant for the reader to understand why I qualified as "indecent" the US current position (President Obama's letter of November 20, 2009) "that normalization between Armenia and Turkey should move forward without preconditions," after having pressured Armenia to accept at least one of the Turkish preconditions.
