Turkey and Armenia have been talking recently about normalizing relations, but they're divided still by conflicting accounts of mass killings of Armenians that happened almost a century ago. The World's Aaron Schachter reports.
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LISA MULLINS: I'm Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. President Obama's visit to Turkey this week included a speech before that country's Parliament. He made this statement about Turkey's currently closed border with Armenia:
OBAMA: An open border would return the Turkish and Armenian people to a peaceful and prosperous co-existence that would serve both of your nations. So I want you to know that the United States strongly supports the full normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia. It is a cause worth working towards.
MULLINS: President Obama essentially made the case for Turkey and Armenia to find a solution to a dispute that's divided the two countries for almost a century. Here's more from The World's Aaron Schachter.
AARON SCHACHTER: There is perhaps no single issue in Turkey as prickly as what did or did not happen between 1915 and 1923. Armenians are convinced it was genocide. Turks say it was an unfortunate byproduct of war. Either way, hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million Armenians were killed. Despite that history, Armenia and Turkey were on the verge of full diplomatic relations when Armenia became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. But war broke out soon after between Armenia and its neighbor Azerbaijan; Turkey sided with Azerbaijan, and that was that – negotiations with Armenia were stopped, the border closed. But now, says Aybars Gorgulu, of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, Turkey wants to be seen now as a problem solver, and fulfill founded Attaturk's original goal of being a “friend to all.â€
GORGULU: You cannot close your borders to a small country neighboring you and tell the world that you are for peace and stability in all parts of the world. So this is paradoxical, so that is why Turkey should correct this error.
SCHACHTER: But as you might imagine, these things are not as easy as just opening a border and exchanging diplomats. During the war, Armenia took over about 14 percent of Azerbaijan's land, an ethnically Armenian area called Nagorno-Karabakh. So Azerbaijan is not pleased by recently renewed ties between Armenia and Turkey. And neither is much of the Turkish population, which views Azeris as brothers and Armenians as suspect. Again, Aybars Gorgulu.
GORGULU: In terms of the domestic politics, the consequences will be huge. Deteriorating relations with Azerbaijan is something nobody wants. In addition, Azerbaijan is the strongest party in South Caucuses, especially now, because the natural resources of Azerbaijan is huge.
SCHACHTER: Resources like oil and natural gas. Azerbaijan's president just this week spoke with US President Obama and voiced his disapproval of Washington's push for Turkish-Armenian detente. Azerbaijan has long insisted that any deal should be contingent on Armenian concessions over Nagorno Karabakh. The minority Armenians in Turkey are fairly ecstatic about the burgeoning relations. Turkish officials have said as part of any deal they'd create a joint commission of historians to hash out what really happened in the early 20th century. But Turkish-Armenian Saro Tasjian says the two countries just need to get on with it, and forget about who did what to whom.
TASJIAN: Armenian people were taken from their lands by killing or not killing or by a way. If we say genocide or not genocide or something different, it doesn't matter.
SCHACHTER: Many Diaspora Armenians, especially in America, would disagree. But Tasjian's brother Saren says it would actually be in Turkey's best interest to own up to its past, in much the same way that Germany did.
TASJIAN: If Germany would deny what Germany did in Second World War, today everyone would still think that Germany is still such a country, that Germany is still so monstrous about minorities. It's a matter of prestige. Prestige is important for countries.
SCHACHTER: Turkey is criticized for the way it treats its minorities, especially the Armenians, who are often quite publicly demonized or even killed. Some groups in Turkey celebrated the 2007 murder of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. But government of Turkey is trying to change its relationship with Armenians. There is hope that a deal between Turkey and Armenia could be reached before the end of April, when Armenians commemorate what they call genocide; but observers say that probably won't happen. One commentator suggested that as close as the two countries may be to normalizing relations, the “g-word,†genocide, creates a huge chasm that will be hard to bridge. For The World, I'm Aaron Schachter in Istanbul.
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