Armenia’s Future, Relations with Turkey, and the Karabagh Conflict

175 Pages·2018·1.61 MB·English

by  Levon Ter-Petrossian

ARMENIA’S FUTURE,
RELATIONS WITH TURKEY,
AND THE KARABAGH CONFLICT
Levon Ter-Petrossian
Edited by Arman Grigoryan
’
Armenia s Future, Relations with Turkey,
fl
and the Karabagh Con ict
Levon Ter-Petrossian
’
Armenia s Future,
Relations with Turkey,
and the Karabagh
fl
Con ict
EditedbyArmanGrigoryan
Editedby
LevonTer-Petrossian
ArmenianNationalCongress ArmanGrigoryan
Armenia,Armenia DepartmentofInternationalRelations
LehighUniversity
Bethlehem,Pennsylvania
USA
ISBN978-3-319-58915-2 ISBN978-3-319-58916-9 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-58916-9
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A
CKNOWLEDGMENT
Anumberofindividualshavemadeimportantcontributionstothisproject.
Several of the documents have been translated by Ara Arabyan, Alexander
Arzoumanyan, Melissa Brown, Gerard Libaridian, and Rouben
Shougaryan. Meline Toumani has done a superb job editing the entire
text. Ashot Sargsyan has provided invaluable help with many of the anno-
tations. Avetis Avagyan has compiled the index, helped with editing the
text,andactedasago-topersonforanyproblemthathasarisenduringthe
process of preparing the manuscript for publication. I would also like to
thank the Palgrave Macmillan team, and Alina Yurova and Ben Bailey in
particular,fortheirpatienceanddedicationtothisproject.
ArmanGrigoryan
v
C
ONTENTS
1 Foreword:TheStruggletoChangetheLogicof
Armenia’sHistory 1
2 TheEarlyChallengestotheTraditionalNarrative,
1989–1991 13
3 Armenian-TurkishRelationsAfterIndependence
andtheContinuedStrugglewiththeTraditionalNarrative 23
4 TheKarabaghConflictandtheFutureofArmenian
Statehood 35
5 ViewsontheKarabaghConflictandtheArmenianTurkish
RelationsFollowingtheReturntoPolitics 61
6 ThePoliticsandGeopoliticsoftheProcessofNormalization
ofArmenian-TurkishRelations 79
7 PeacewithNeighborsHasNoGoodAlternatives 131
vii
viii CONTENTS
Appendix 153
Bibliography 169
Index 171
CHAPTER1
Foreword: The Struggle to Change the Logic
’
of Armenia s History
LevonTer-Petrossian,whoseselectarticles,speeches,andinterviewsdealing
withArmenian-Turkishrelations,theKarabaghconflict,andthefutureofthe
Armenian statehood are presented in this volume, was the first president of
independentArmenia.Heservedinthatcapacityfrom1991 to1998 when
heresignedfollowingapoliticalcrisistriggeredbyhisendorsementofaplan
for settling the Karabagh conflict.1 Ter-Petrossian had briefly served as the
ChairmanofArmenia’sSupremeSovietpriortoArmenia’sindependenceand
adoptionofapresidentialsystem.Hehadassumedthatpostinthesummerof
1990 when the Armenian National Movement (ANM) unseated the Com-
munists in the elections to the Supreme Soviet in the summer of 1990,
becoming the first noncommunist government of a constituent republic of
theSovietUnion.Ter-PetrossianwasoneoftheleadersoftheANM,which
had started as a movement demanding the transfer of the jurisdiction of
the Nagorno Karabagh Autonomous Region from the Azerbaijani to the
Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic,2 but which then transformed into a
movement for democratic rule and independence from the Soviet Union.
Assuch,itbecameanintegralpartofthewiderdemocraticmovementinthe
Soviet Union, while Ter-Petrossian became a highly respected figure in it,
providingimportantcritiquesofthe Sovietsystem,and formingparticularly
closetieswithBorisYelstinandtheRussianliberals.
Afterhisresignationin1998,Ter-Petrossianreturnedtohisvocationasa
historian of the medieval Middle East,3 and maintained total silence on
political matters for an entire decade. Concerned about the direction in
©TheAuthor(s)2018 1
L.Ter-Petrossian,Armenia’sFuture,RelationswithTurkey,andthe
KarabaghConflict,DOI10.1007/978-3-319-58916-9_1
2 1 FOREWORD:THESTRUGGLETOCHANGETHELOGICOF...
whichArmeniawasheadedandrespondingtopublicdemand,hereturned
topoliticsin2007andstoodasacandidateforpresidentintheelectionsof
2008. The ruling regime clung to power by falsifying the elections then
resortingtoforceafterTer-Petrossian’ssupporterslaunchedacampaignof
protests.4Followingthecrackdown,Ter-Petrossianstartedanoppositional
mass movement, which he christened the Armenian National Congress
(ANC), and embarked on a protracted struggle for the two things that
havedefinedhispoliticalcareer—ademocraticArmeniaandArmeniathatis
atpeacewithitsneighbors.
Thecollectionofarticles,speeches,andinterviewscontainedinthisvolume
providesauniquewindowintothatstruggle.Butitismorethaninformation
aboutasinglepolitician’sviews.Itisaninvaluableresourcefortracingthemost
importantissues,problems,anddisputesthathaveanimatedArmenianpolitics
forthelastthreedecades.Thisisnotamemoirdesignedtojustifycontroversial
decisionsortorespondtoaccusations.Itisalsonotsomethingthatwaswritten
toappealtoaforeignaudience.Ratherthematerialcontainedinthisvolumeis
adebatewithopponentsinArmeniaaboutwhyArmenianeedstonormalizeits
relationswithTurkeyandtosettletheKarabaghconflict.Assuchitrevealsa
fascinatingpoliticalpictureofacountrythathasbeenengagedinaprotracted
conflictwhiletransitioningfromcommunism.Thepictureismadethatmuch
morefascinatingbythefactthatitisradicallydifferentfromtheonepainted
inmostWesternmediaandacademicwritingsonArmenia.
The preponderant opinion on the conflict in Karabagh in the Western
media and academia, as on “ethnic conflicts” in general, draws inspiration
fromtwogeneralarguments.Theydifferintheirtheoreticallogicsinsignifi-
cantways,butwhattheyhaveincommonistheinsistencethattheseconflicts
are always irrational as faras the “real” interests of the ordinary members of
the groups in question are concerned and that the ideas driving them are
profoundly illiberal. According to the first of these arguments, “ethnic
conflicts”arethedirectconsequenceofnationalistnarratives,whichsimulta-
neouslycontainhostilemythsaboutcertain“others”asvictimizersorinferiors
and myths of martyrdom and chosenness about the group itself. These
narrativesbecomethefuelfornationalistmobilizationsespeciallywhenmul-
tiethnicstatesandempirescollapse,takingthedeterrenceagainstsuchpolitics
withthem.TheKarabaghconflictfeaturesprominentlyintheliteratureasan
example of such a conflict. In what is perhaps the most straightforward
articulation of this argument and its application to the Karabagh conflict,
Stuart Kaufman maintains that the conflict was the result of Armenians’
peculiarinterpretationoftheirhistoryasthatofvictims,andespeciallyvictims
1 FOREWORD:THESTRUGGLETOCHANGETHELOGICOF... 3
inthehandsofTurksandtheirethnickin—theAzeris.Armenians,infact,did
notevendistinguishbetweenTurksandAzeris,hefurtherexplains,andsaw
the problem of Karabagh as part of a larger existential conflict with the
“Turks.”ThegenocidecommittedbyTurkswasseenbythemasawarning
forwhatwasinstoreforKarabaghArmenians.Healsotellsthereadersabout
theArmenianmythologyofChristianmartyrdomdatingallthewaybacktoa
sanctifiedfifth-centurybattle,whichArmeniansfoughtagainstSassanidIranas
theyresistedthelatter’sattempttoconvertArmenianstoZoroastrianism.The
subsequenthistoryofasubjugatedChristianminorityinvariousIslamicstates
cementedtheArmenianself-imageofChristianmartyrs.Kaufmaninsiststhat
thecombinationofhatreds,fears,andasenseofarighteousmissionthatthis
narrativegeneratedledtothebloodshedinKarabagh.5
MichaelCroissanthitsonallthesamepointsandmore—theimportance
of the unique religious identity in the Armenian nationalist narrative, the
sufferingasChristiansubjectsofIslamicempires,andespeciallyatthehands
ofTurks, thegaze toward Russiaas aChristiansavior,Armenianclaims to
historic rights over Karabagh as the indigenous group in the region, the
Armenian contempt for Azeris, and, last, but not least, the overwhelming,
existential fear of Pan-Turkism combined with a desire to correct historic
wrongsostensiblycommitted inthenameofthat doctrine.6The conflict in
Karabaghwasalmostinevitable,giventhisnarrative,orsoarguesCroissant.7
Inanotherwisewell-informedandintelligentbook,which,infact,isthe
book of reference on the Karabagh conflict, Thomas de Waal writes along
similarlines:
A...morecrucialfactorinstartingthe[Karabagh]conflictwastheeasewith
whichhatredoftheothersidecouldbedisseminatedamongthepopulation.
The Turkish historian Halil Berktay calls these mass expressions of fear and
prejudice“hatenarratives.”Theywerethedarksideofthe“renaissance”ofthe
1960s...ArmenianandAzerbaijaniacademicshadbeendenigratingtheclaims
ofrivalscholarsothers’republicfortwentyyears.In1988,allthatwasneeded
wasinjectionofpolitics—offull-strength“alcohol”—intothemixture.Inawar
ofpamphlets,drawingonyearsoftendentiousscholarship,sarcasm,andinnu-
endo,andselectivequotationincitedordinarypeopleintohatred.8
Thisgeneraloutlookpervadesthemediacoverageaswell.Forexample,
it is difficult to find a reference to the Karabagh conflict in the New York
Times that fails to call it a conflict between “Christian Armenians and