Turkey and Armenia. The ties that divide

Date: 17/06/06

Locals dream of reopening the frontier between Turkey and Armenia

NAIF ALIBEYOGLU, mayor of Kars, a town bordering Armenia, has a dream. He pictures a party of Turkish officials embracing their Armenian counterparts in the middle of an ancient bridge over the river that divides their countries. Reduced by war and neglect to a pair of greyish stone stumps on opposite banks of the river, its condition is an apt symbol for relations between the two countries. The bridge, part of the historic site of Ani (see box), would in theory be easy to reconstruct. Fixing the broader relationship between Turkey and Armenia promises to be a great deal harder.

Turkey was among the first countries to recognise Armenia when it emerged from the Soviet Union's wreckage in 1991. But bitter arguments over the fate of the Ottoman Armenians--did the mass killings of 1915 constitute genocide?--together with lingering border disputes have stood in the way of formal ties. The estrangement deepened in 1993 when Turkey sealed its land frontier with Armenia (while still allowing direct air travel). The Turks acted after Armenian forces had occupied a chunk of Azerbaijan in a war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Years of secret talks between Turkish and Armenian diplomats--the latest of which were held in Vienna in March-- have failed to ease tensions. And this is despite vigorous backing for renewed ties from both America and the European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join.

Mr Alibeyoglu, who is from Turkey's ruling AK party, says the people of Kars are paying the price. With average annual incomes of only $823, Kars is among the country's poorest and most neglected provinces. Yet before the cold war Kars was among the young republic's most progressive places. It is vividly evoked in "Snow", a novel by Turkey's most famous writer, Orhan Pamuk. Locals would attend the theatre and ballet and dine on caviar and champagne. Such tastes were inherited from former Russian occupiers, whose traces can still be detected in the grandeur of its Tsarist-era architecture.

Mr Alibeyoglu, whose penchant for wine and naughty sculptures would have gone unnoticed in those days, now sees a chance to reverse his city's decline, but only if Turkey unconditionally reopens its borders. By doing this, Turkey would regain some moral high ground, as well as securing access to strategic markets in Central Asia and beyond. Kars could even become a regional hub in the Caucasus, especially if a rail link to Armenia's capital, Yerevan, were restored. Trade volumes between the two countries, now averaging a measly $100m a year, almost all of it conducted via Georgia, should soar.

There is more. As many as 200,000 members of the Armenian diaspora return to their homeland every year. Many would like to cross the border into Turkey in order to visit Armenian archaeological sites. The tourist trade could be worth millions of dollars. "They would also meet Turks and realise they aren't quite as evil as they imagined," adds Kaan Soyak, co-chairman of the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council.

But how to break the diplomatic deadlock? Mr Alibeyoglu's answer is to take matters into his own hands. In 2000 he drove to the Armenian town of Gyumri, where he appeared on television with his fellow mayor and appealed for peace. This autumn, Mr Alibeyoglu will host a festival that features, for a second time, performers from Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Armenians will have to make a tortuous journey via the Turkish cities of Trabzon and Istanbul. But the mayor hopes that, one day soon, their journey will be much quicker.

Feature looks at relations between Armenia and Turkey.

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