ARMENIA THIS WEEK
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
In this issue:
Armenia announces major security reform plans
Mediators make "new" Karabakh peace proposals
Economist: Turkey is beginning to face its terrible past
ARMENIA ANNOUNCES MAJOR SECURITY REFORM PLANS
A senior Armenian defense official unveiled this week the government's
plans to develop and undertake a major decade-long military reform
effort in consultation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO). Deputy Defense Minister General Artur Aghabekian spoke at a
Yerevan seminar organized by the George Marshall European Center for
Security Studies. Aghabekian also mentioned that the Marshall experts
were helping Armenia develop an Individual Partnership Action Plan
(IPAP) that would outline the framework for Armenia's closer cooperation
with NATO and is due to be finalized by the end of next month.
Aghabekian said that at the start of the reform, a new National Security
Strategy document would be prepared by the government, vetted with
non-government experts and presented for approval by the next National
Assembly to be elected in 2007. The reform plan, Aghabekian added, will
be guided by four major principles: realistic goals, gradual
implementation, thorough analysis and flexibility, and democracy and
transparency of the process. Aghabekian estimated that by 2015, Armenia
will have a military "which will meet the requirements of the 21st
century, withstand new challenges and fully provide for the country's
military security."
Western experts consider the military forces of Armenia and Nagorno
Karabakh, currently numbering over 60,000, as some of the most
combat-ready in the former Soviet space. The Armed Forces of the
Republic of Armenia and the Defense Army of the Nagorno Karabakh
Republic were constituted in the early 1990s on the basis of volunteer
self-defense detachments. These forces were joined by hundreds of ethnic
Armenian Soviet Army officers and subsequently supplemented through a
comprehensive national draft system.
While confident in these forces' ability to address immediate security
threats to Armenia and NKR, Armenian officials acknowledge the need to
deal with shortcomings inherent from the Soviet-era military doctrine,
cases of corruption and hazing and the need to continuously upgrade
military tactics and capabilities, despite the existing financial
constraints. In this regard, Aghabekian pledged a "more active
participation of civilians in defense issues" and expanded "democratic
oversight" over the military as part of the reform effort. (Sources:
Mediamax 4-12; Regnum.ru 4-12; RFE/RL Armenia Report 4-12)
MEDIATORS MAKE "NEW" NK PEACE PROPOSALS
Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers may meet in London later this
week to consider "new proposals" put forward by international mediators,
the Russian envoy to the talks Yuri Merzlyakov said last week.
Merzlyakov provided no details of the proposals, but stressed the need
for a new meeting between Presidents Robert Kocharian and Ilham Aliyev,
possibly at one of the international summit venues next month.
The two Foreign Ministers, Vartan Oskanian and Elmar Mamedyarov, have
held intermittent talks since last year dubbed the "Prague process."
Earlier reports suggested that they are discussing a "hybrid" of past
proposals that would entail an early withdrawal of Armenian forces from
some of the formerly Azeri-populated districts in exchange for an Azeri
commitment to a resolution of Karabakh's status through referendum.
Neither Merzlyakov nor the U.S. envoy Steven Mann sounded optimistic
that the London meeting is set to become a turning point in an
increasingly acrimonious peace process. Last month also saw increased
tension along the Line of Contact, with both sides reporting soldiers
killed and wounded. Aliyev appears to have backed off serious
negotiations, declaring that he would make no compromises and was not
"in a hurry" to settle the conflict. Instead Aliyev has called for
intensification of an "information war" against Armenians in all
international venues and boosted spending for the country's military
forces in an effort to substantiate his frequent threats to unleash a
new war in Karabakh.
Moreover, domestic concerns may preclude any significant compromises as
all three sides involved, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh, will
hold elections this year. A widely-read Stratfor analytical report last
week referred to sources in the Azeri government as being "very nervous"
over the prospect of a revitalized opposition effort to remove Aliyev
amid the ongoing scandals and shake-up of the Azeri security
establishment and as the country nears elections.
Azeri officials suspect that the U.S. government is helping the
opposition mobilize. This week, Parliament Speaker Murtuz Aleskerov
accused the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Reno Harnish of "interfering
in the internal affairs of Azerbaijan" and added that the Azeri Foreign
Ministry was "already dealing with his activity." And Ali Ahmedov,
Aliyev's deputy as chairman of the ruling party, demanded that Harnish
"provide explanations" for his recent meetings with opposition
activists. (Sources: Armenia This Week 1-10, 3-28; RFE/RL 4-5, 6, 9;
Stratfor 4-6; Regnum.ru 4-12)
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Turkey's Armenians
Beginning to face up to a terrible past
Apr 7th 2005 | DIYARBAKIR
From The Economist print edition
At least the Turks now allow the Armenian tragedy to be talked about
ZEKAI YILMAZ, a Kurdish health worker, was 12 when he found out that his
grandmother was Armenian. "She was speaking in a funny language with our
Armenian neighbour," he recalled. "When they saw me they immediately
switched to Kurdish." Pressed for an explanation, his grandmother
revealed an enormous scar on her back. At 13 she had been stabbed and
left for dead together with hundreds of fellow Armenians in a field
outside Diyarbakir. Mr Yilmaz's grandfather found her, rescued her,
converted her to Islam and married her. "But in her heart she remained
an Armenian and I sort of feel Armenian too," said Mr Yilmaz.
Similar accounts abound in Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-eastern
provinces. The region was home to a thriving community of Armenian
Christians until the first world war; traces of their culture are
evident in the beautifully carved stone churches that lie in ruins or
have been converted into mosques.
But the first world war was when, according to the Armenians, 1.5m of
their people were systematically murdered in a genocide perpetrated by
Ottoman Turks, a massacre that went on even when the war was over.
Millions of Armenians worldwide are set to commemorate the 90th
anniversary of the start of the violence on April 24th.
The Turks deny there was genocide. Though they admit that several
hundred thousand Armenians perished-the figures vary from one official
to the next-they insist that it was from hunger and disease during the
mass deportation to Syria (then also Ottoman) of Armenians who had
collaborated with the invading Russian forces in eastern Turkey.
Some Kurds dispute this version saying that their forefathers had joined
in the slaughter after being promised Armenian lands-and a place in
heaven for killing infidels-by the Young Turks who ruled Turkey at the
time. "You [Kurds] are having us for breakfast, they [Turks] will have
you for lunch," an Armenian proverb born in those days, was "eerily
prescient" says a Kurdish journalist, referring to the violence between
Turkish forces and separatist Kurds that later racked the south-east.
Until recently such talk would have landed these Kurds in jail on
charges of threatening the integrity of the Turkish state. But as Turkey
seeks membership of the European Union, its repressive laws are being
replaced by ones that allow freer speech. Calls are mounting within
Europe, and much more encouragingly among some Turks themselves, for the
country to face up to its past. As a result, unprecedented debate of the
Armenian issue has erupted in intellectual and political circles and the
mainstream Turkish press.
Some of the reaction has been ugly. Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's best-known
contemporary novelist, received death threats when he told a Swiss
newspaper that "One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in
Turkey." One over-zealous official in a rural backwater went so far as
to issue a circular calling for all of Mr Pamuk's books to be
destroyed-only to find there were none in his town. His actions were
applauded by a vocal and potentially violent group of
ultra-nationalists, who claim that the Europeans are using Armenians,
Kurds and other minorities to dismember Turkey.
Yet there are hopeful signs that the Turks are willing to listen to
other opinions as well. Halil Berktay, a respected Ottoman historian
long ostracised for his unconventional views, survived telling the
pro-establishment daily Milliyet recently that the Armenians were
victims of "ethnic cleansing". After decades of wavering, Fethiye Cetin,
a Turkish lawyer, roused the courage to publish the story of her
grandmother, another "secret Armenian" rescued by a Turk. Published in
November, the book is already into its fifth edition.
In Istanbul members of a newly formed ethnic Armenian women's platform
have vowed to shatter negative stereotypes by publicising the works of
their successful sisters. "We are fed up with Turkish movies that
portray us as hairy, morally promiscuous and money-grubbing creatures,"
explained one.
In a groundbreaking if modest gesture, Turkey's mildly Islamist prime
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made a joint call last month with the
main opposition leader, Deniz Baykal, for an impartial study by
historians from both sides of the genocide debate. His reason, he said,
was that he did not want "future generations to live under the shadow of
continued hatred and resentment." He believes that the findings will
show there was no genocide.
The move has been shrugged off by Armenia as a ploy to quash attempts in
various EU quarters to link Turkey's membership with recognition of the
genocide, as well as deterring America's Congress from a possible
resolution mentioning "genocide". Turkish officials retort that the
prime minister's call marks the first time any Turkish leader has
invited international debate of Turkey's past, albeit a purely academic
one. If the government were insincere, they ask, why did the Turkish
parliament ask a pair of ethnic Armenian intellectuals to brief it on
April 5th?
Hrant Dink, the publisher of Agos, a weekly read by Turkey's
60,000-member Armenian community, was one of the questioned
intellectuals. He offered plenty of sensible advice. He says that
Turkey, rather than getting bogged down in endless wrangles over
statistics and terminology, needs to normalise its relations with
neighbouring Armenia. As a first step, it should unconditionally open
its borders with the tiny, landlocked former Soviet republic. These were
sealed in 1993 after Armenia occupied large chunks of ethnically Turkic
Azerbaijan in a bloody conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
Make friends with Armenia, first
Not only would Turkey score valuable credit with the EU and the United
States, but mutual trade would blunt the influence of the hawkish
Armenian diaspora. A recent survey carried out jointly by a Turkish and
Armenian think-tank showed 51% of Turkish respondents and 63% of
Armenians in favour of opening the borders.
Even so, mutual hostility prevails. Among the Armenians, 93% said it
would be "bad" if their son married a Turkish girl, while 64% of Turks
said the same of an Armenian bride. This does not worry the
irrepressibly optimistic Mr Dink. "Let's first get to know one another,"
he declares. "Love will follow."
