For Turkey, neither the border between Turkey and Armenia nor the relations between the two countries in particular and Turks and Armenians in general are vital issues. Armenia has never been the “enemy par excellence” of Turkey, and a peace treaty with Armenia is not the beginning of a new era. The protocols are not “the protocols of the 21st century,” and the Turkish foreign minister has not overcome any Turkish dogma. Does he deserve a Nobel Peace Price for that? No. But he does for another signature.The lifting of visa requirements between Syria and Turkey is a much more important event in Turkish history. The Turkish-Armenian border had never been a frontier line. Terrorists never used it to infiltrate Turkey. The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) had never mobilized their tanks and troops along the Armenian border. When the border was open, it was not a big deal for Turkey, and when it is reopened, it won’t be the savior of the Turkish economy.
But the Syrian border is different. It is Turkey’s longest border, and one of the longest borders between any two countries in the Middle East. Turkey declared its readiness for war in the republican era twice. One turned into a real war (Cyprus), and the second involved Syria. Syria hosted the archenemy of the Turkish nation, the leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan. Damascus was an anti-Turkish propaganda center in the post-Ottoman Arab world. And only a few days after the signing of the Turkish-Armenian normalization protocols, Turkey and Syria lifted visa restrictions on their borders.
There are several messages in the timing and style of the Turkish-Syrian border agreement.
The first message is to the Armenians. The protocols have yet to be recognized by the parliaments of the two countries, but Turkey gave the sign in Aleppo and Gaziantep that “when we open the doors, we open them as such!” Turkey does not want a cold peace with Armenia. We want real cooperation that will undo the pains of the past and create prospects for a joint and fruitful future.
The second message is to the European Union. By opening the Turkish-Syrian border to free passage, Turkey has hinted to our European friends that Turkey does not want to be the last garrison of the EU. It wants to be the first gate of the union. Europeans may hesitate to open the gates of Europe to Turkey, but Turkey has already opened those gates to Syria.
And this was done despite reservations prevalent in the world.
Turkish-Armenian normalization protocols were perceived in the Western world from the eyes of the average Armenian. It was a gigantic event in the history of Armenia and for the West. Armenia has always perceived Turkey as its “absolute other,” the enemy par excellence, a perfect object of hatred. The opening of the Armenian border is a vital issue for Armenia both economically and politically. Despite the fact that Edward Nalbandian caused a last-minute crisis during the signing of the protocols, he is the one who succeeded in making the unthinkable happen. They had to overcome their dogmas; they had to fight the Armenian diaspora and the Armenian genocide industry.
The Western press saw the event from that perspective.
The opening of the Syrian border is not just a decision to “lift visas.” The two countries held their first “inter-ministerial meeting” and decided that if one of the countries does not have a consulate in any world city, the second one’s consulate in that city will cover the consular services for the other. This is one step less than Turkish-Azerbaijani relations, where the two countries are fond of saying that this is a relationship between two countries of the same nation.
Now, do Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu deserve a Nobel Peace Price? Certainly! Not for what has been achieved on the Armenian track, but for what has been done on the Syrian track.
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