2009-04-29

On 22 April the foreign ministries of Armenia, Turkey and Switzerland (which served as an intermediary in the talks) published a joint communiqué on the agreement reached with regard to the principles according to which the normalisation of relations between Ankara and Yerevan should take place. This is the first time such an important step has been taken to regulate Turkish-Armenian relations, and as such it has been welcomed by the USA and the EU. At the same time, however, it has come in for strong criticism by nationalist communities in Azerbaijan, Turkey and Armenia.

The short communiqué only states that the parties have made major progress and reached mutual agreement in the process of normalising relations, and that they have developed a road map to this end. The content of the agreement, though, has not been published because it might potentially have a bad public reception (especially in Armenia, where it has been argued for years that Ankara should recognise the 1915 genocide of the Armenians before any agreement is concluded), or because of the political consequences, in case the document fails to mention the regulation of the Karabakh conflict (Azerbaijan is opposed to any normalisation of relations between Ankara and Yerevan before this condition is met). The very disclosure of the fact that a road map has been agreed upon has caused serious concern in Baku, and prompted Armenia's nationalist party Dashnaktsutiun to leave the government coalition and move over to the opposition. Statements hostile to Turkey and the Armenian authorities have also been made by veterans of the Karabakh war.
It seems that Armenia and Turkey are coming closer to normalising relations. The main obstacles remaining concern the unregulated Karabakh conflict and the strong nationalist sentiments in both states. <mf, bart>

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