Armenian and Turkish Presidents pursue “football diplomacy”

In the second leg of the so-called “football diplomacy”, Armenian President, Serzh Sargsyan, travelled to Bursa yesterday to watch the return match of the World Cup qualifier between Armenia and Turkey. Mr Sargsyan is the first Armenian head of state to travel to Turkey since the closing of the border in 1993. In a hugely symbolic gesture representing the recent diplomatic progress which has been made between the two countries, Mr Sargsyan and his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, arrived at the stadium together and sat side-by-side during the match. However, despite these positive steps, it still remains for the protocols for the normalisation of relations to be ratified by both parliaments. The introduction of a quasi-preconditon to the ratification – a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute – by Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has raised fears that an agreement may not be reached.

 

Below we provide you with articles from CNN and PanArmenian.net.

 

Armenian leader in Turkey for Soccer Diplomacy

(Source: CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/14/turkey.armenia.soccer.diplomacy/index.html)

 

BURSA, Turkey (CNN) — Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian Wednesday became the first Armenian head of state to travel to Turkey to attend a soccer game between the two countries’ national teams.

 

Sarkisian and Turkish president Abdullah Gul arrived at the stadium in Bursa together in a car flying the national flags of both countries. In an exclusive interview with CNN before the game, Gul said the event opened a new chapter for relations between Armenia and Turkey. But when asked, he avoided saying whether the border between the two neighbors would be opened before 2010.

 

At the match, Turkish supporters vastly outnumbered Armenian fans and gave the Armenian national anthem the standard treatment for most visiting foreign teams — they booed.Small pockets of Armenian supporters waved the tri-color flag of Armenia. Turkey won the World Cup qualifying group game 2-0 but with both countries already unable to progress to the 2010 tournament in South Africa, the significance of the game was in its symbolism.

 

This round of “football diplomacy,” comes just days after the two governments signed a historic series of protocols to establish diplomatic relations between the two neighbors. “This is going to be the biggest change in the South Caucasus since 1994,” said Gevorg Tel-Gabrielyan, the Armenia country director for the Eurasia Partnership Foundation. He was in Bursa on Wednesday, hosting a conference of Armenian and Turkish academics examining bilateral relations. “If this happens,” he added, “its going to change geopolitics in the region.”

 

Armenia and Turkey have been separated by nearly a century of animosity and distrust. The protocols call for establishment of embassies in each others’ capitals, and for re-opening the Turkish-Armenian border, which has been closed since 1993. The soccer game was also being held in Bursa, which centuries ago was the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

 

Thousands of police were deployed to maintain strict security. On Tuesday, Turkey’s prime minister made a public appeal to Turkish football fans, to greet Sarkisian with hospitality and to avoid provocations. Despite strong support from the United States, the European Union and Russia, there is considerable opposition among nationalists in Turkey and Armenia to the peace process. Sarkisian has been met by angry protests both within Armenia and among the influential diaspora communities in the United States, France and Lebanon. Thousands of protesters in the Armenian capital marched to the country’s genocide memorial chanting “no concessions to the Turks,” last week.

 

Armenia has long demanded that Turkey recognize the World War I-era massacre of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians by Ottoman Turkish soldiers as genocide. Modern-day Turkey vehemently denies a genocide took place and is calling for an international commission of historical experts to examine these tragic events.

 

Meanwhile, opposition party leaders in Turkey have criticized the agreement, as has Turkey’s close ally in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan fought and lost a war against Armenia in the early 1990s. On Sunday, Turkey’s prime minister made a fresh call for Armenia to withdraw its troops from the disputed Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

 

For the new agreement to go into effect, the documents must first be put to a vote in the Turkish and Armenian parliaments. There is no guarantee lawmakers will ratify the agreement. The process of unraveling the complicated network of regional, domestic and historical grievances dividing Armenia and Turkey was jump-started in September of 2008, when Gul traveled to Yerevan to attend a football match between the two national teams. The diplomatic rapprochement has also gotten valuable support from powerful patrons, experts say.

 

“This is one of the few places in the world where Russia and the United States are pulling in the same direction,” says Hugh Pope, an expert on Turkey with the International Crisis Group. “Both want to see a more stable Caucasus.” Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were both present at the signing ceremony for the Turkish-Armenian agreement in Switzerland on Saturday.

 

Wednesday’s game in Bursa was the final match for the coach of the Turkish national team, Fatih Terim, who announced his resignation after Turkey’s most recent football defeat. Despite that, the headline in one of Turkey’s biggest newspapers billed today’s football game “Our most challenging match.”

 

Gul: Turkey, Armenia “not writing history but making it”

(Source: PanArmenian.net, http://panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=37892)

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The presidents of Turkey and Armenia sat side-by-side to watch a World Cup soccer match on Wednesday, in a show of unity meant to help defuse opposition to an agreement to reopen their border and restore relations.

At a meeting of the delegations of Turkey and Armenia in Bursa, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said “making history can not take place in a single day.” “This is a process. We have witnessed together that we can solve the difficult problems within this process,” Gul said during the meeting of Turkish and Armenian delegations.

The participants at the meeting of the delegations affirmed that Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan displayed the same courage shown by President Abdullah Gul in September 2008 by coming to Turkey to watch a World Cup qualifying match between the teams of Turkey and Armenia on Wednesday. The delegations expressed during the meeting that the two sides showed an example of great leadership and that the people of both countries got closer to each other.

 

President Gul referred to the process with Armenia as “extremely important development”. Sources said that Gul told the delegations “great steps were taken. A legal platform was prepared. There are documents that were signed. The next process will be to make progress on this platform”. The calendar as set forth in the documents will go into effect once the documents have been approved, Gul said.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, for his part, said that the steps taken by Turkey and Armenia were crucial. “I have experienced difficulty while trying to inform certain circles since August 31. I have completed the process by facing difficulties,” Sargsyan said. “I have not tried to inform people in order to receive permission from the Armenian diaspora. I wanted to convey a decision of the Armenian Government to the diaspora and held meetings in order to update them,” he said.

“There could be individuals with different thoughts in both countries, Turkey and Armenia. What is important is to see that the number of people thinking positively about our steps are in the majority. The number of people thinking positively will increase in time. We are doing the right thing. We are taking steps which we believe are right,” the Armenian President concluded.

 

More sources:

 

UEFA: ‘Football for peace – three Presidents in Bursa’

BBC: ‘Diplomatic coup at football match’

Associated Press: ‘Armenia, Turkey pursue ‘soccer diplomacy”

France 24: ‘Turkey wins symbolic football match against Armenia’