Erdogan must explain

Published: Thursday September 24, 2009

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Will the real Turkey please stand up?

Reservations about the Armenia-Turkey agreement

Speaking to the executive editors of Turkish newspapers on September 17, Turkey's Prime Mininster Recep Tayyip Erdogan said it was "impossible" for Turkey to open the border with Armenia without the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Milliyet and TRT reported the next day.

We do not know whether the editors were surprised by the statement. But we do know that Mr. Erdogan's government has initialed an agreement with Armenia under which it has committed to open the border two months after the agreement is ratified. There is no mention of Karabakh in the document.

So does he intend to open the border, as promised, or does he not?

Speaking at Princeton University this week, Mr. Erdogan announced that he would take the agreement with Armenia to the Turkish Grand National Assembly for ratification on October 10-11 (a Saturday and Sunday!) He said he expected the parliament to ratify.

Which will it be Mr. Erdogan? Open or closed?

Mr. Erdogan's reported statement on September 17 was consistent with Turkey's position ever since it first closed the border with Armenia 16 years ago. When he repeated this position in April 2009 and thereafter, it raised serious concerns about his government's commitment to the normalization of relations with Armenia. President Serge Sargsian rightly told the Wall Street Journal at the time that Mr. Erdogan's statement indicated "the motivation of Turkey" to normalize relations with Armenia "has decreased."

But it looked as though the motivation of Turkey had increased again; the foreign ministries of Armenia and Turkey agreed to announce on August 31 that protocols on bilateral relations had been initialed. They would be signed by mid-October and sent to the parliaments of the two countries for ratification.

It seemed that perhaps good judgment had prevailed. Perhaps Mr. Erdogan had appreciated the importance of normal relations with neighbors. Perhaps his government had faced the fact that their attempt to starve Armenians into submission in Karabakh had failed. Perhaps he understood it was not helpful to allow Azerbaijan's relationship with Armenia to determine the nature of Turkey's relationship with Armenia.

And then this.

Mr. Erdogan owes Armenia and the world an explanation. The Turkish press, the U.S. press, and the United States State Department should join the Armenian government in asking, "Which shall we believe? Your written commitments or your verbal comments?"