Former deputy foreign minister and negotiator for Armenia, Gerard Libaridian believes the ongoing process between Turkey and Armenia to be full of misjudgments, misconceptions and self deception. According to him both countries sacrificed long term strategic interest for short term issues. In his interview with Cumhuriyet he analyses the mistakes and weaknesses of all parties.

How do you think the Armenian resolution passed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee could affect the normalization between Turkey and Armenia?

The normalization of bilateral issues between two countries were tied by Turkey to the question of the sub commission to history. The purpose of which was to ensure that there was no recognition. That was the price Turkey wanted to extract in return for a normalization. Now if it could not get this or if there is any kind of recognition of the genocide in Washington then why should it hurry into a normalization process? I think it was a mistake to make this linkage. Both governments linked larger strategic interests to short term interests. For Turkey it was to block the campaign for the recognition of the genocide and for Armenia it was the de-linkage of bilateral relations from the Karabakh issue. I think the government of Turkey miscalculated that this could be done to stop the genocide recognition. And Armenia miscalculated that Turkish government could de-link the Karabakh issue from the normalization of bilateral relations question. So they sacrificed the larger issues to small short term interests.

What do you think President Obama`s position would be on the 24th of April? Do you think he would use the G-word?

I do not think president Obama or senator Clinton will go farther than they did last year.  Last year his remarks were closer to recognition than the recent presidents`. Although he did not use the term in the official statement, he did say in that statement that he supports his earlier position, meaning position as a candidate, which recognized the events as genocide. I think in substance there has been recognition. He did not use the term in that particular statement and I do not think he will use it now. Turkey is an important country in the region and in many problems the US is facing in Middle-East, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This normalization process seems stuck? Do you think there is still hope?

If my analysis is right that both governments care more about the short-term interests and issues and each feels that they got what they wanted although they got nothing, then it is a self-deception on the part of both governments. The normalization becomes secondary. I think that they don`t know either what will happen to the process. I think they were so focused on the short term and then they spent so much energy on that particular document that they have a sense that this was the end of the process. And they did not realise that in fact this is the beginning of a much harder process. Such documents whatever their short comings are, require nurturing, require a lot of care, require a lot of more political capital invested in them to turn those words into any kind of reality. The government of Armenia has a question of legitimacy and credibility. The government in Turkey is facing major challenges on the number of fronts including the domestic issues as to what kind of an country it will be in the future, the role of the military and so on.

Armenia`s supreme court decision caused mistrust in Turkey. How can you continue this process without trust?

I think the Turkish government miscalculated just as the Armenian government miscalculated. For any Turkish government to have believed of having such a document, having such a sub commission will stop the process of world wide genocide recognition, is a misconception and self- deception. Turkish government may ask for a sub commission and it may get it but that as far as the government of Armenia is concerned, but not as far as the whole Armenians around the world are concerned. Even a government in Armenia has to cover its back when it has signed something like that. So I think the problem begins with the Turkish government misconceiving, expecting the impossible. Similarly for an Armenian government to believe that a piece of paper that does not link Karabakh issue directly to bilateral relations normalization, it is a self deception. So mistrust is one of way putting it but I think there is something more there. In fact it is the misjudgment on the part of each to recognize the reality on the other side and act accordingly.

The US is pushing a dual approach, namely the normalization process in one hand and the Minsk process for Karabakh on the other. The US and Armenia claim that Karabakh issue is not a pre-condition, but isn`t it a natural component of the whole process?

The hope was to push the same processes at the same time so one will encourage the other. And I understand that. But it becomes a very fine point as to whether these are linked or not, officially linked or not. But it does not matter. Because of the misjudgments and non preparedness of both the parties to the documents and the mediators, there was a lot of wishful thinking then in fact we end with the opposite result. The first process is now making the other one even more difficult. The mistrust is spread out, now the language in Baku is not very encouraging so instead of the process of normalization helping out it is now harming the Karabakh process. In that case we can say they are linked but not necessarily on the paper. The US was giving a totally different image about that. The US or Russia or whoever when they say they are not linked, who are they kidding? This is the question I ask. Are they trying to convince themselves, each other, are they are convincing us; Turks and Armenians…I don`t know. It does not really matter, the reality is that they are linked.

You worked for Armenia`s former president Ter-Petrossian for long years. What has changed in the positions of the parties since then?

I was also the first negotiator with Turkey on behalf of Armenia for the protocols. I did that between 1992-97.  At that time initially we came very close to finalizing a protocol. We were 95 percent done. There was no question of a sub commission, Turkey never put that question and we did not raise the question of genocide recognition by Turkey. That was set aside. And secondly there was no linkage to Karabakh. That linkage came in april of 1993 when Kelbacar came under Armenian control. That`s when our negotiations basically stopped. Turkey said she cannot do this, and that we had to settle this problem. So the linkage was created then and now it has been very difficult to remove it from the Turkish negotiating position. After Ter-Petrossian  resigned over that issue Kocaryan came to power. It is in my view that Kocaryan did not want to resolve this problem. Now we have a new president in Armenia who I think has more of an interest in resolving these issues. He might have underestimated the problems he would face.

So what do you expect from now on? What are the worst case and the best case scenarios?

We are in a more dangerous situation now than a year ago. Because something was tried with Turkey and it has so far produced more mistrust or it has revealed quite a bit of misjudgement on the part of both. Secondly because government of Armenia came under such serious attack on many fronts, it will be more difficult for it now to go forward with the Karabakh issue which means Azerbaijan will be much more impatient. The big question is whether the godfathers of protocols such as the US and Russia are willing to put more pressure. It seems to me the likelihood is that the US will kind of allow Russia now to deal with Karabakh issue. To begin with Russia is the only country which can influence Armenia. I do not think there is any other country that can do it. As long as Russian mediated solution does not harm American and Western interests there, I think the US having problems in Irak, Afghanistan, Pakistan and anywhere else, it may allow Russia to be more active and compel the sides to come to an agreement, particularly the Armenian side. On the other hand the worst case scenario is; In general when you have an impasse on the ground, the parties to the conflict do not want or cannot come to an agreement, then one way of solving the problem is changing the mood or changing the situation on the ground. That means some kind of military action that changes the situation on the ground and forces the parties to recalculate which is a very dangerous worst case scenario. Because changing the ground means if not by negotiation, it means by military. And no one knows where military hostilities may end. Certainly this is the worst solution but also if the parties to the conflict cannot come to the agreement, and the big boys want to see some solution then Russia may end up being more active and that may not be the worst solution.

What does Russia really want from this conflict?

I have always been asked if Russia really wants to solve this problem or not. And my answer is everyone wants to solve this problem except each wants to see it resolved in a way that it increases its influence and interests. The US would not see it resolved if the resolution is that it loses the Caucus. And the Russia would not want to see it resolved in a way where it loses the Caucus.  We have a mini cold war mentality with regard to the region. So Russia will be happy to resolve it if it stabilizes the region without necessarily pushing out the US. So the Russians want to be the big boy in the region and maybe that`s the way to do it. It is clear that Russia as other countries including Turkey, Iran and the US, would not like to see Karabakh independent or be a part of Armenia.  Russia may impose a step by step solution or along with the practical issues to resolve it may impose a temporary status for Karabakh that would be something like a intermediate phase for long term solution.

In that sense this process is a failure?

Sort of. I think it is possible that both countries could realize that they put too much into this, they have a lot of capital invested in this and the cost of failure may be more to them in different ways. So they might come back to being a little less aggressive in the talks and start thinking of ways to implement it or realizing that they made a misjudgment and that in fact signing of the protocol was not the end but it is just the beginning. They may still come back to think that long term interests are too important and the others will have to be managed.

Bio
Gerard L. Libaridian is the Director of Armenian Studies Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

From 1991 to 1997 Dr. Libaridian served as Adviser, then Senior Adviser (foreign and security policy) to the former President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrossian, as First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (1993-1994), and as negotiator for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

He taught previously at a number of universities, and has lectured and published extensively.

Source: Cumhuriyet by Elcin Poyrazlar