OH! How wonderful!
Are we still playing that silly game, furkish furkbol, rusky futbolski and of course , the American “football” that has nothing to do with the “foot”, except when placed in the mouth.
Now that ankara is the capital of the US. If only Yerevan would move away from Moscow and become a suburb of W-ankara DC. Can you count your “blessings”, the furkish delights.?
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Thursday, August 13, 2009
Better relations with Turkey could aid Armenia
Nicholas Clayton THE WASHINGTON TIMES
TBILISI, Georgia
Although the process has been slow, the historic bid to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia announced in April has potential to shift regional power balances by giving Armenia an opportunity to wrest itself from dependence on Russia.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in retaliation for Armenia's support of an ethnic Armenian secession movement in neighboring Azerbaijan.
If the Turkish border reopened, landlocked Armenia would have greater access to trade through ports on the Mediterranean and Black seas, and would be less dependent on transit through Russia.
"Armenia is a weak country, and it is surrounded by countries that are either countries that are not friendly or were not friendly up until very recently," said Masha Lipman, political analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center.
"So Armenia found itself with Russia as it's chief protector, but I don't think this will last for a long time. I think Armenia, like others, can diversify now," she said.
In April, diplomats from Turkey and Armenia disclosed that two years of secret diplomatic talks had produced a tentative framework for a package of sweeping reconciliation measures, including a reopening of the border and a bilateral commission to investigate what Armenians have called genocide by the Ottoman Empire, which preceded modern Turkey.
"Given the history of the relationship between the two [Turkey and Armenia], if this is real ... it should take a long time. We've only seen the beginning of it," said Ms. Lipman.
Armenia has maintained a close relationship with Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, and Iran has been expanding its economic ties to the small country. Ms. Lipman said these relationships have been built out of necessity.
If opened up, Armenia could potentially work toward NATO and EU integration and could become a major transit country for energy trade like it's northern neighbor Georgia.
Apart from its turbulent relationship with Turkey, however, Armenia's domestic politics have been an obstacle to strengthening its ties with the West.
In June, the U.S.-funded Millennium Challenge Corp. cut $64 million from an aid program aimed at repairing Armenia's crumbling roads. The corporation's acting director, Rodney Bent, released a statement saying this was a punitive measure for Armenia, whose actions were "inconsistent with the eligibility criteria that are at the heart of the MCC program."
Mr. Bent was making reference to Armenia's May 31 municipal elections, which -- like the country's February 2008 elections -- were widely criticized by Western experts and the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan as fraudulent. With this loss of funds, Armenia turned to Russia and Iran.
Before the Iranian election crisis, talks were in the works for Iran to provide funding for the road reconstruction, and Russia announced this year it would offer a $500 million low-interest loan to Armenia, which has been hard-hit by the global economic crisis.
"It's a general challenge when countries start to compete for sponsorship. We saw this from several countries during the Cold War," said Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.
"I wouldn't be too surprised if Armenia is trying to play this game, but as long as Turkey and Azerbaijan remain its adversaries, it will be difficult," Mr. Cohen said.
The biggest obstacle to normalization of ties remains Armenia's frozen conflict with Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh, whose population is predominately ethnically Armenian, declared independence from Azerbaijan in 1991. The enclave received direct military support from Armenia as it fought to secede. Armenia now militarily controls the enclave as well as about 9 percent of Azerbaijan's total territory outside the disputed zone.
Karabakh is already labeled as being Armenian territory on many Armenian maps, but Turkish officials have stated that resolving the territory's unrecognized status would be a prerequisite to normalizing ties with Armenia. Ms. Lipman said changing the status quo, however, is a mistake.
"No one benefits from this conflict becoming hot instead of frozen. But any attempt to radically resolve it - any abrupt move, I think, is very dangerous there," she said.
Nonetheless, during a visit to Turkey in June, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated her support of Turkish efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
The other major obstacle to Armenia-Turkey relations involves efforts to label as a "genocide" a World War I-era pogrom by Ottoman Turks against ethnic Armenians. An estimated 1.5 million Armenians died in massacres and forced marches by the Ottoman military.
Turkey says events during its Ottoman predecessor are for historians to evaluate and that no genocide took place.
Today, 20 countries have officially classified the event as a genocide, and President Obama said during his presidential campaign "America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide."
However, when visiting Turkey in April, he backed away from his campaign remarks by not using the term "genocide." Mr. Obama later said that the Congress would not pass legislation for the U.S. to label the episode a genocide, so as not to not interfere with the normalization negotiations.
The U.S. State Department declined to clear its Yerevan staff to speak with the press, primarily because normalization talks with Turkey are at such a delicate stage, an embassy official said.
On the Turkish side, the normalization negotiations may have an impact on Turkey's bid to join the European Union.
In Europe, which hosts a large Armenian diaspora, leaders have cited the genocide dispute as one of several reasons to block its EU membership bid.
Ms. Lipman, however, denies the two issues are linked.
"It may be a good pretext, but I think the reason [Europe has stalled Turkey's membership negotiations] goes much deeper," she said. "There is an apprehension of Turkey as a rising nation, a strong economy, a country whose population is growing, as opposed to European countries, whose populations are going down. It's Muslim, which is another disadvantage. Again, this isn't very politically correct, but I'm sure this is regarded as a source of concern for many in Europe."
