Turkey and Armenia announced late on Wednesday that the two countries had drafted a "roadmap" on normalizing diplomatic relations following a 15-year hiatus, a statement that was quickly welcomed by the United States and the European Union but is feared to upset Azerbaijan, thus endangering Europe's energy security. Azerbaijan, a key supplier of natural gas and oil, has warned that Turkey's reconciliation with Armenia without progress in Baku's dispute with Yerevan over Nagorno-Karabakh would destabilize the region.
Although there is a broad agreement over how the process of normalization must continue, no formal text has yet been signed. In remarks on Thursday evening, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an said the process was still under way. "When everything becomes concrete, an agreement will be signed.
There is no such text yet; there is a preliminary agreement. That means we have an ongoing process. That is what we mean by a timetable," Erdo?an said.
Azerbaijan fears it would lose key leverage if Turkey opens its border with Armenia without progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, the very reason why Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993. The Turkish-Armenian text is not expected to include a timetable for resolution of the complicated dispute, but there are speculations that it will include good-will language on Nagorno-Karabakh to placate Baku.
Turkey previously linked normalization with Armenia to Armenian withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh, but this policy appears to be changing even though Turkish officials continue to reiterate in public statements that ties with Armenia can only be normalized in parallel with progress in settling the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
Ankara's insistence on normalizing relations gradually is a sign of its cautiousness in handling the country's sensitive ties with Azerbaijan. Nationalist opposition in Turkey is also very likely to complain of "submission to Western pressure" to normalize ties with Armenia in the event of immediate normalization.
A Western diplomat speaking to Reuters confirmed that the deal had not yet been signed although the two sides had agreed on diplomatic ties, opening the border and establishing commissions to tackle historical disputes. "All the documents have been agreed in principle but it's from the signing that the clock starts ticking," the diplomat said. "It is a finite period that is not very long. We are talking about weeks or months."
There has been no official statement on what the Turkish-Armenian deal will include, but it is expected to include opening of diplomatic representations in Ankara and Yerevan; gradual opening of the closed border; Armenia's formal recognition of a 1920 treaty between Turkey and the Soviet Union which draws the border between Turkey and today's Armenia; and establishment of commissions that to work on issues of dispute, including Armenian claims of genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. The final text of the agreement will need to be approved by the parliaments of the two countries.
Although no substantial reference to resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute is expected to be in the text, Turkish officials believe efforts to resolve the problem will speed up in summer, with the US and other international actors getting involved.
"There has been unprecedentedly intense diplomacy. And this does not only involve Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Russia, the United States, the EU, they are all involved," President Abdullah G
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