Significant, highly controversial steps towards the formation of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey were taken during 2009.
Roadmaps and protocols
On April 23, an agreement of “mutual understanding,” defined as a “roadmap,” had been agreed upon by Armenia and Turkey assuring the world that mutually beneficial relations between them were forthcoming. However, Turkey insisted that the Armenian-Turkish border remain closed. The agreement on Turkey’s part was believed to have been an effort designed to thwart President Barack Obama’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide by its proper name in the presidential message addressed to Armenian Americans annually on April 24. The plan worked.
For several months nothing more came out of the roadmap, and it was beginning to appear that the two nations would not be moving forward towards establishing diplomatic relations, as was hoped by many. Only four months later, news about renewed negotiations broke and sent shockwaves throughout the world.
In a surprise development, the Turkish and Armenian Foreign Ministries announced in the late evening of Aug. 31 that they had agreed upon two protocols containing several points of perceived mutual agreement and understanding related to various factors to be considered for forming diplomatic relations. The protocols were being brokered for months in secret by the Swiss. It was Turkey that had severed diplomatic relations in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan during the Nagorno-Karabagh War.
The protocols were harshly criticized not only in Armenia but in the Armenian Diaspora. Of particular concern was a provision calling for the formation of a “historical commission” that would examine past events pertinent to both Turks and Armenians. Critics claimed that the commission would essentially debate whether or not the Armenian Genocide occurred, thereby undermining further international recognition of the genocide—a claim Yerevan repeatedly denied. Furthermore, Armenia would be required to formerly recognize the Treaty of Kars and thereby forfeit its right to reclaiming lands that had been stripped away in the 1921 pact.
In the days leading to the signing of the proposals, President Serge Sarkisian made a tour of several Armenian communities around the world, including New York, Paris, Beirut, and Los Angeles, only to be met embarrassingly with scorn and outrage.
Public outcry had virtually no swaying influence on the resolve of the Armenian authorities, and Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian alongside his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu signed the protocols in Zurich on Oct. 10. Russia, France, and the United States especially put strong pressure on the parties to sign the agreements and move steadfast forward towards forming diplomatic relations as quickly as possible. Countries throughout Europe and even as far east as Japan lauded the agreements.
Soon after the signing, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced publically that the ratification of the protocols by Turkey and the subsequent establishment of diplomatic relations with Armenia was contingent upon a swift, final resolution to the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict that would satisfy Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and scope of influence. On Oct. 19, Davutoglu formally echoed those sentiments in a comment told to the Turkish press and repeated several times throughout the autumn. Yerevan had been rejecting concerns that an imminent peace agreement with Azerbaijan was linked to an envisioned opened border with Turkey.
The Republicans along with its junior coalition partners, Prosperous Armenia and Orinats Yerkir, hailed the protocols, insisting that an opened border would boost the Armenian economy, without providing specifics to back its claims. The Armenian National Assembly must ratify the protocols for them to take immediate effect, but will do so only after the Turkish Parliament passes them, according to official statements. It is widely believed that the protocols will be ratified by the National Assembly without delay once formerly introduced for deliberation.
A paradox economy
The Armenian economy, running parallel with the international financial crisis that began in late 2008, was dealt a heavy blow as indicated by the finance ministry. However, the effects of a global recession were not clearly noticeable.
In the nine months since the start of 2009, Armenia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 18.3 percent. All of Armenia’s strongest sectors contributing to economic growth during the last five years took drastic hits. Paired with that reality, despite promises made by Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian to crack down on tax evasion, little change was noticeable. Corruption amongst government officials, especially within the tax and customs departments, was ever rampant. To make matters worse, foreign remittances from Armenians living abroad significantly decreased.
In late October, Finance Minister Tigran Davtian admitted that the government would fall 15 percent short of meeting the 2009 budget of $2.45 billion. It was believed that tax collection discrepancies were the main reasons for failing to meet the target. The draft budget for 2010 was set at approximately $2.23 billion.
Armenia received well over $1.6 billion in combined foreign assistance from Russia, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, while U.S. Millennium Challenge Account funds remained frozen. The loans were to be used mainly to fund various infrastructure projects as well as boost small and medium-sized businesses. Complaints were heard, however, that banks were refusing many applications for loans without explanation.
The construction sector purportedly fell by 50 percent according to official statistics, despite the fact that a considerable number of development projects were evidently ongoing throughout the year. Approximately $52 million was set aside for allocation as credit loans to promote the industry’s rejuvenation, but a total of only $9 million had been lent to merely four construction firms, as was revealed by the prime minister in mid-November. It is unclear how the remaining sums of that fund have been allocated.
Also, the diamond processing industry saw a sharp decline, with an output of 39,138 carats from January to October versus 100,945 carats during the same period in 2008.
The World Bank’s managing director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, issued a warning to the Armenian government in October that the oligarchic structure believed to be holding the reins of monopolistic large-scale business activities conducted in the country would have to collapse for Armenia to see steady, future growth.
Panic ensued throughout the country in March when the dram drastically depreciated overnight by as much as 80 dram. Some stores and supermarkets shut their doors in order to assess the currency shift and adjust prices accordingly. Across the line, prices fell drastically for consumer goods and services against the strengthening dollar during the year. As an example, the price of a 700-gram package of lavash bread alone fell approximately 30 cents from $1.33 to $1.03 since the start of 2009.
Ironically, alongside the reported financial decline a simultaneous surge in the number of specialty boutique shops, trendy restaurants, and luxury automobiles was blatantly obvious throughout Yerevan during the year.
Reign of the Republicans
By the end of the year the Republican Party, headed by President Sarkisian, had managed to gain control of all power ministerial positions. The ARF’s ministers of labor, education, and agriculture had already relinquished their seats and all of the party’s deputy ministers resigned per its decision to quit the government in April. Republican Armen Ashotian took over the ministry of education, while Prosperous Armenia and Orinats Yerkir Party members became ministers of labor and agriculture, respectively.
By November, Prime Minister Sarkisian, Finance Minister Davtian, Economy Minister Nerses Yeritsian, and Yerevan Mayor Gagik Beglarian (also known as “Black Gago”) had all joined the Republican ranks, just in time for the party’s congress. Belgarian was appointed mayor by the Republican Party, which won 46.5 percent of the vote in a controversial Yerevan municipal election held on May 31 and mired with irregularities. The prime minister and Beglarian were both appointed to the party’s governing board.
The majority faction in the National Assembly is composed of Republican Party members, numbering 62 in total. Member Hovik Abramanian (commonly known as “Moog”), who is considered a powerful oligarch and is a highly controversial figure in public life (having been connected indirectly with shootings and violence during the year), serves as the chairman of the National Assembly. The party enjoys the support of junior coalition parties Prosperous Armenia and Orinats Yerkir, which hold 24 seats and 16 seats, respectively. Virtually all legislation is approved or rejected by the sole will of the party.
According to the party’s estimates, the Republicans hold 553 seats in communities across Armenia and boast a membership of 130,000.
A rift purportedly developed in November between the Republican and Prosperous Armenia Parties over the former’s perceived tight-fisted control of the Yerevan municipality, but Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian subsequently played it down.
Freedom for political dissenters
Over 50 jailed opposition supporters were granted general amnesty in July under strong pressure from the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) especially, as well as from the U.S. Among them was Alexander Arzoumanyan, a Levon Ter-Petrossian loyalist and former foreign minister, and Gagik Jahangirian, the deputy prosecutor-general, both of whom were prominent opposition figures. More than 100 oppositionists were jailed in 2008 for allegedly having been connected with the devastating violence of March 1, 2008. Nearly all of the accused were imprisoned on trumped-up charges and with lack of ample evidence to support claims of their guilt. Along with the oppositionists, 2,000 other prisoners were also released per the provisions of the amnesty.
Two other high-profile dissenters came out of hiding in the second half of the year—the firebrand newspaper editor Nikol Pashinian and business tycoon Khatchig (a.k.a. Grzo) Sukiasyan, who escaped prosecution purportedly in exchange for resigning from his seat in the National Assembly. Pashinian, however, remains on trial for his alleged role in “organizing mass disorder” and assaulting a police officer on March 1, 2008.
A shift in opposition
The political opposition was in a paradoxical state long before the end of the year. The Armenian National Congress, a coalition of oppositional political parties led by former president Ter-Petrossian, essentially made a 180 degree shift in its ideological stance since the turn of the year, lending its moral support to the Sarkisian Administration for its progress in strengthening Turkish-Armenian relations. The political movement even hinted at a willingness to cooperate with the authorities.
Ter-Petrossian had been extremely critical of Sarkisian’s policies, particularly against the ongoing peace negotiations to resolve the Karabagh conflict. The former president had repeatedly called for Sarkisian’s resignation, claiming that his election to office in 2008 was illegitimate. There were no reports of in-fighting between individual party leaders within the Congress in protest to Ter-Petrossian’s new line.
Meanwhile, Jirayr Sefilian’s party broke ties with the Congress, condemning Ter-Petrossian’s fresh rhetoric and calling for a continued struggle against the governing authorities. He announced that his Armenian Volunteers’ Union would undertake a new struggle called “Sardarabad,” the specifics of which have yet to be brought to light.
The Heritage Party, another opposition group that never formally joined forces with the Armenian National Congress, also exemplified its firm stance on the rejection of the protocols, and even demanded that a public referendum be held on whether to accept or reject the protocols. That initiative was thrown out by the parliament majority.
Political blunders and backtracking
Heritage, the party founded by former foreign minister Raffi Hovhannisian, found itself floundering in September when three of its members—Movses Aristakesyan, Zoya Tadevosyan, and Vardan Khachatryan—were expelled from the ranks, having been accused of secretly collaborating with both opposition and pro-government parties, the specifics of which were never made apparent.
Just before the party’s shakeup, Hovhannisian resigned from his seat in the National Assembly under mysterious circumstances while out of the country. Rumors were spread by Tadevosyan that Hovhannisian had submitted a letter to the party’s governing board announcing his resignation from the party as well as from political life, while Khachatryan claimed that Hovhannisian had been aware of the secret negotiations all along. It was not until Sept. 21 that Hovhannisian made scathing comments against the compromising actions of his party members in a released statement. Nine days later, he rescinded his decision to resign and maintained his parliamentary post representing the party.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) meanwhile made a number of baffling decisions in response to turbulent changes in the Armenian political climate.
In April, in protest to the signing of the Turkish-Armenian “roadmap” agreement, the ARF decided to resign from the government in ideological protest, declaring itself in “positive opposition.” Only days later, however, the party agreed to keep its appointed parliamentary posts after an offer was made by the chairman of parliament, Hovik Abrahamian. Nevertheless, Artur Aghabekian, the chairman of the Standing Committee on Defense, National Security, and Internal Affairs Defense and a former deputy defense minister, chose to resign from his post out of principle, only to be replaced by fellow party member Hrayr Karapedyan. Armen Rustamian in kind resigned from his seat on the National Security Council after initially agreeing to stay on.
In mid-September, an investigative parliamentary commission presented its report of the infamously controversial March 1, 2008 incidents to the National Assembly. Despite the ARF’s own criticism of the report citing flaws that were documented in an addendum, its two commission members agreed to sign it anyway. The ARF came out in support of the crackdown on opposition protests only days after the March 1 melee, which left 10 people dead, including two police officers.
In the weeks before the slated signing of the Turkish-Armenian protocols, the ARF held a sit-in protest on Republic Square, where members and supporters took turns sitting on chairs in 10-hour shifts refusing food. Signatures were collected in support of its amendments to the protocols, which it planned to submit during the parliamentary debate on their ratification. Yet, Foreign Minister Nalbandian in his address before parliament on Oct. 1 had announced that the protocols were non-negotiable and making amendments to them was not possible. Party leaders called the situation unacceptable.
Meanwhile, the ARF Bureau chairman Hrant Markarian in an official statement claimed that the party would do whatever necessary to stop the protocols’ signing.
Two weeks after the protocols’ signing on Oct. 10, the ARF revealed a platform calling for a plan to be enacted within an undefined timeframe to seek “regime change” in response to Armenia’s rapprochement with Turkey, which the party considered biased in Ankara’s favor. The party also cited as a basis for its platform the insistence to include the leadership of Nagorno-Karabagh in the peace negotiations, and to have the self-declared republic recognized internationally.
Yet in an interview with the daily newspaper Iravunk on Nov. 20, party leader Armen Rustamian explained that the ARF would seek regime change only after the protocols were ratified by the Turkish and Armenian Parliaments. Turkey had repeatedly been connecting the opening of the border with Armenia to a peace settlement for the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict since the signing of the protocols.
Then on Dec. 2, the ARF Supreme Body announced that the party would sue the Armenian government on the grounds that its recent rapprochement with Turkey via the protocols was unconstitutional. Party leaders anticipate that the Constitutional Court will rule as such with the evidence the party provides. Yet, Armenia has a poor record for instilling a fair and independent court system. Freedom House ranked Armenia in its 2008 Nations in Transit Country Report at 5.25 (down from 5.00 in 2007), regarding the nation’s own “Judicial Framework and Independence” on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 indicating the lowest level of democratic advancement. It remains unclear as to whether the party can be expected to make any headway with such a lawsuit.
Suffer the ecology
The Teghut forest located in the north of Armenia was scheduled to be felled in a business plan approved by Armenia’s Ministry of Nature Protection. Approximately 357 hectares of forest were to be cleared to make way for a copper mining project taken on by the Armenian Copper Programme (ACP). Many species of endangered wildlife indigenous to Teghut have been cited in the “Red Book” published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and they have also been documented in the Armenian Red Book listing of endangered species. A dump for waste containing heavy metals was to be created by the ACP in a nearby gorge.
In July, the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center, the Vanadzor Office of the Helsinki Civic Assembly, and EGODAR presented a lawsuit to the Yerevan Administrative Court to stall the activities. Simultaneously, an environmental protection group called “Save Teghut Forest,” which gained hundreds of supporters through online social networks like Facebook, had been actively campaigning to stop the felling. As of November, the lawsuit was still ongoing.
The ACP had been dumping large amounts of arsenic and various chemical waste from its copper processing facility in the town of Alaverdi, Lori. The waste area has existed since the Soviet era when the operations began decades ago. It is believed that the arsenic and other chemicals from the dump are seeping into the soil and have been making their way to the Debed River. There have been reports of factory workers dying from malignant tumors for years. No official studies have ever been conducted to assess the environmental impact the mining operations have had in northern Lori.
The activities of the Deno Gold Mining firm operating in Kapan, Syunik, were also monitored closely by environmental protection groups. The quality of farmland in the region surrounding the factory has purportedly been damaged, discouraging villagers from tilling the soil.
The quiet European
In May, notorious oligarch and Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian, infamously known as “Dodi Gago” by the general public, was named Armenia’s “Best European of the Year” by the European Movement in Armenia, an affiliate organization of the European Movement International. Tsarukian, who was once a professional arm wrestler, is a fixture in public life and is frequently seen charming young woman reporters on television news reports. No specific explanation was given as to what he had accomplished to earn that honor.
Christian Garbis
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Armenia is in trouble folks. We seem to be an old race yet still highly immature in our wisdom and political skill. The more seemingly organized and stable diaspora must get involved in the affairs of Armenia proper or the thiefs and thugs will sell us all. The secretly hatched “protocols and roadmap” scheme is proof enough that Armenia’s ruling oligarghs cannot govern with the skill and true vision of the race as a whole. Otherwise, it is akin to letting the ‘fox watch the hen house’ which is equally absurd. I propose another political party in Armenia whose sole purpose is to represent the will of the diaspora. One that is totally funded by the diaspora. One that represents the greater majority of the Armenian population and it’s vision of true transparent democracy, equality and prosperity for all Armenians in Armenia, final justice and restitution for the Armenian Genocide and a free Karabagh. The days of letting the Armenians run their own country and business is over!
Hi John, I truly sympathise with you. The answer for your justly outcry is within one and only political party that is called social democratic party. In my humble opinion, this party thinks and breaths solely for the Armenian people and for our beloved Armenia. The Diasporan Armenians cannot rule from abroad, even though a majority of them are obviously the remnants left from the Armenian Genocide and loves our Motherland; however they should undoubtedly to be regarded when an event as dire as the destructive “protocols” have to be drawn. The Armenian government must be in Armenia proper and the only one I see that will have vision, ethics, and the love for our Motherland and for our people; is the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.
President OBAMA is a liar. This will be more evident on April 24 when he doesn’t use the Genocide word.
The congressmen who shouted “you lie” was right along with Reverand Wright who said OBAMA is just another politician.
Hye, recent news of the Turkish leaderships, indicate a Turkey that is in decay, decayed, and decaying – while lying to the world that it is a forward moving leadership! Even capable of ‘aiding’
other nations whom Turkey shall negotiate!! Turkey is as a ship that is sinking…
Unburied, the bones of our Martyred now know of the demise they were awaiting for all leaderships that perpetred the Turkish Genocide of the Christian Armenians on their own lands, slaughtering, kidnapping, rapes, of the victims, more . Then Turkish lies, including endless denials of guilt…
Unbelievable – even blaming the victims – as deserving of their slaughters, and more.
Turks, still are of the hordes that emanated from the Asian mountains – stole Armenians lands and culture to be their own. Yet, Turks could never, over the centuries, rise to join with the civilized nations of the world… the Turkish leaderships lead to their own demise – verchabess!
Manooshag
P.S. what now, US lobbyists for a Turkey? what now, U.S. Department of State? what now, Obama?
Unfortunately the Turks have oil companies, weapons makers, EU liberals/apologists, and the US State Department on their side. There is a good chance Turkey can decay from within with regards to the growing alienations between islamists and Kemalists as well as fractures with the Kurds. In the end, the Kurds may find themselves in an advantageous position when this all shakes out although this could take decades. The islamists and Kurds are not growing any less restive, that’s for sure.
“The more seemingly organized and stable diaspora must get involved in the affairs of Armenia proper or the thiefs and thugs will sell us all.”
God no.