Interview withJeffrey Mankoff, associate director of international security studies, Yale University.
Q: What’s your view of the present state of negotiations on a peace settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?
A: There is still a long way to go. Turkey’s interest in achieving rapprochement with Armenia means that for the time being the Nagorno-Karabakh issue will be set aside. Attempting to incorporate a deal on Nagorno-Karabakh into the discussions on opening the Turkish-Armenian border and other kinds of limited steps would risk collapsing the entire process. Without Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, Yerevan seems unlikely to yield much on Nagorno-Karabakh. Another uncertainty has to do with the political turmoil in Turkey connected to the struggle between the AK Party government and the military. While this struggle is under way, doing anything about Nagorno-Karabakh could be politically dangerous for the Turkish government.
Q: Do you believe that the sides to the conflict can solve the problem during 2010?
A: Probably not, for the reasons outlined above.
Q: What do you think about Russia’s efforts to play a dominating role among the mediators on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?
A: Given Russia’s role as a patron of Armenia, along with the mistrust growing out of the conflict in Georgia, it seems unlikely Moscow could succeed on its own as a mediator in the conflict. Russia obviously has a role to play, but it will have to be in conjunction with other outside powers including Turkey and the US/EU.
Q: Do you think that normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations will accelerate the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?
A: If it succeeds, yes. But this normalization will take time. Many Armenians (not to mention much of the Armenian diaspora) is dubious, and if Turkey’s internal problems worsen, Ankara may well prove less likely to take a risk on normalization with Armenia.
Q: Armenians are stepping up their efforts towards recognition of the Armenian genocide in the USA. Do you expect President Obama to recognize the events in Ottoman Turkey as “genocide” in his traditional speech on 24 April?
A: I doubt it. Obama is too cautious a politician and Turkey is too important an ally. Another reason is that the threat of denouncing the Armenian massacres as genocide gives Washington (and Tel Aviv, which normally lobbies against calling the massacres genocide) leverage with Turkey. Once they actually play the genocide card, that leverage evaporates. Both the US and Israel are eager to reinforce the Turkish-Israeli alliance right now, and using the word “genocide” would make that aim much more difficult to achieve.
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