Ankara defies US pressure on normalization process with Armenia

Howard Berman (D-Cali.), the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Friday he intended to call a committee vote on the non-binding resolution on March 4. The resolution would call on President Barack Obama to ensure that US policy formally refers to the events as “genocide” and to use that term when he delivers his annual message on the issue in April -- something Obama avoided doing last year.

The panel approved a similar bill in 2007 but it was never put to a full House vote amid fears among both Democrats and Republicans that it would alienate Turkey.

The US move came at a time when a top Turkish diplomat was already scheduled to visit Washington in the coming weeks to express Turkey’s concerns over the Armenian Constitutional Court’s ruling. Now, the US committee’s planned vote also be on agenda of the upcoming talks in Washington between US officials and Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioğlu, an undersecretary of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, which will take place weeks before April 24, the “genocide” commemoration day.

After months of Swiss mediation and US encouragement, Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols in October 2009 to establish diplomatic ties and reopen their shared border. However, the process hit rocky ground after the Armenian court upheld the legality of the protocols but underlined that they could not contradict Yerevan’s official position that the alleged Armenian genocide must be internationally recognized.

Turkey accused Yerevan of trying to rewrite and set conditions on the deals. Armenia’s president and foreign minister have warned that the rapprochement is under threat of collapse.

The move in Washington added insult to injury as Ankara believes that US pressure on such sensitive processes will backfire and will in the end help neither Turkey nor Armenia.

While in Munich on Saturday to attend an international security conference, Davutoğlu held bilateral talks with US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, who arrived in Munich from Yerevan, where last week he met with Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan.

In addition to Steinberg, Davutoğlu also held talks on the issue with US National Security Advisor James Jones and Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Davutoğlu conveyed his concerns to all three US officials over both the planned vote in the US House committee and the ruling by the Armenian Constitutional Court.

Ankara has been explaining to Washington that the normalization process with Armenia did not start due to US pressure. Imposing pressure on Turkey has never yielded positive outcomes throughout history, Turkish officials have also told US officials, diplomatic sources told Today’s Zaman.

While explaining its beliefs, Ankara gave as an example the Turkish Parliament’s refusal of a government motion on March 1, 2003, to allow US troops to open up a northern front against Iraq from Turkey, thus leading to the reference to a “March 1 syndrome” when talking about the bilateral relationship of the two NATO allies. Parliament’s decision at the time came despite strong US pressure, showing that this pressure actually backfired, Ankara told Washington.

Turkey accepts that many Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks but denies that up to 1.5 million died and that it amounts to genocide, saying many Muslims also died as Armenians revolted in an attempt to create an Armenian state in eastern Anatolia in collaboration with Russian forces. Turkish officials have warned that any new attempt in US Congress to brand the killings as genocide could damage US-Turkish ties.

Turkish governmental officials, speaking with Today’s Zaman, expressed their conviction that Ankara believes the timing of three particular incidents in recent weeks is not coincident at all; respectively referring to the reasoning of the Armenian constitutional court’s decision on Jan. 12, Armenia’s irreconcilable attitude concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute during talks hosted by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Sochi, Russia, on Jan. 25; and finally Friday’s announcement concerning the planned vote in the US House Committee.