Although it received comparatively little attention in the US, the State Department’s attempt to push for Turkish-Armenian normalization was one of the great foreign-policy follies of the early Obama Administration. There was little chance that the Turkish public would accept normalization absent some kind of Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) settlement; the political viability of normalization in Armenia wasn’t much greater, particularly given hostility among the Armenian Diaspora to normalization sans recognition of the “Armenian Genocide.”
To make matters more fun, successful normalization would have further isolated Azerbaijan, jeopardizing the Northern Distribution Network and possibly convincing Baku to attempt to seize NK by military force.
But, the process failed, and thus merely strained US-Turkish and US-Azerbaijan relations.
I mention all of this because RFE/RFL has a story that encapsulates this comedy of errors:
It was meant as a symbol of friendship that would help to heal the wounds of a long history of bloodshed, bitterness, and recrimination between Turkey and Armenia.
Instead, an imposing monument in the eastern Turkish city of Kars near the two countries’ border threatens to become yet another victim of their tortured relations after incurring the wrath of Turkey’s mercurial prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In a visit to Kars on January 8, Erdogan showed emphatically that he was unimpressed by the sculpture’s subliminal message of peace by denouncing it as a “freak” and calling for its demolition. The prime minister, a former Islamist, voiced particular display that the towering structure threatened to overshadow the shrine of Hasan Harakani, a revered 11th-century Muslim figure. […]
Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan, Armenia country director at the Eurasia Foundation, even goes as far as agreeing with Erdogan’s critique of the Kars statute, saying it is typical of sub-standard memorials to the Turkish-Armenian conflict built over the years.
“I have seen myself that monument [and] I fully agree with Mr. Erdogan,” Ter-Gabrielyan says. “That’s a horrible construct and we know that many horrible constructs have been erected, both in Turkey and Armenia and it would be great if there was perhaps some kind of joint commission created which would evaluate the aesthetical, architectural and environmental significance of the monuments and buildings that are being constructed in eastern Turkey and today’s Armenia.”
Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.
He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.
He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.
Hi Dan,
Erdogan is not one to pick his battles – he is at the same time embroiled in a row with Merkel over some remarks she made when on Cyprus this week (I have a post on my blog about it), and there is of course the frosty relationship with Israel that refuses to thaw despite joint efforts against brushfires.
There are a lot of variables up in the air when it comes to Armenian-Turkey relations. You mentioned the pipeline and Genocide issues, but there is also Turkey's stalled EU negotiations, where Armenian groups so far unsuccessfully keep trying to add Genocide recognition as a criteria for EU membership. EU membership should, in theory, prod Turkey toward improving relations with all its neighbors. In reality, the EU's perceived discriminatory treatment of Turkey is stirring up resentment and nationalist sentiments in Turkey that make normalization with Armenia more difficult from a domestic political p.o.v.
The main item – apart from a sustained/renewed US push – speaking for normalization is Turkey's declared “zero problems” foreign policy aim, but it is running up against a lot. Perhaps it is best to let this one sit for a while, let the Armenian and Turkish historians prod away slowly at the Genocide question, and get back to it when the time is ripe.
Don't get me started on EU-Turkey. But I think you might have misunderstood me–I believe it was a mistake for the US to push for normalization without seeking movement on NK.
I won't get you started (my book on EU-Turkey rels is coming out in June so I don't want to get myself started either…). No, I got that and my concluding sentence could be interpreted as saying that I agree that it was premature (although I am not sure that the NK is the main obstacle).