Կարո Փայլան. Պատերազմում հաղթող չի լինում, խաղաղության մեջ՝ պարտվող (eng. subtitles)
Hello! You are watching the “The Next Day” program series on the Aliq Media platform. We are in Istanbul and today we’re having a talk with Garo Paylan, Member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Mr. Paylan, thank you for accepting our invitation! Thanks for having me! We’d like to talk today about the recently launched relation building processes between Armenia and Turkey․ The processes aren’t made public yet, but I’m sure you might share the belief that they have to follow a mutually beneficial discourse. 2022 marked a new stage in Turkey’s foreign policy, characterized as “diplomacy for peace, stability and security.” So, normalizing relations with Armenia was emphasized as a priority at this stage.
Why now? What’s behind choosing this very period? Until 2015, Turkey had been following a more or less democratic course, but since 2015, Erdogan’s Government has been framing a more aggressive foreign policy with Greece, political tension in the Mediterranean, while leading more rough politics in Syria. And, indeed, they weren’t even slightly preoccupied with normalizing relations with Armenia. Turkey’s politics with the Arab World had always felt tense. Yet we witnessed Turkey’s losses in these directions and it soon became clear that distancing from the West and warming to Russia didn’t predict a rewarding future for Turkey. In late 2019, the concept of developing balanced and favorable policies with neighbor states became widely promoted.
I kept repeating that aggressive politics will cause losses to Turkey and other countries in the region alike. Particularly after the Armenia-Azerbaijan war, I was claiming that both countries came out of it defeated. Moreover, Turkey was defeated as well. A nationalist discourse existed at the time, but later it became clear that Turkey had lost here too. So, Turkey brought about the policy of normalizing relations with all nations.
With Greece, for instance, Turkey is trying to settle existing issues through talks, while with Armenia a settlement process is underway. I place great importance in that the process of normalizing relations with Armenia has a leading role in this agenda. “Normalization” doesn’t imply settlement of all issues. It means ensuring normal relations between the two nations.
For instance, Turkey has problems with Greece but they share open borders and ambassadors, they conduct direct trade and tourism relations. In fact, normalization processes should be targeting similar goals: opening borders, exchanging diplomatic representation and, subsequently, practicing settlement of issues through direct talks. If we attribute these meanings to the concept of normalization, we will succeed, I believe. I’d like you to share your understanding of Turkey’s foreign policy. How would you describe them in general terms?
Turkey had long drifted away from the policy of normalizing relations with its neighboring countries. However, to examine this issue, let’s consider the following example: what was the outcome for Armenia in the recent Nagorno-Karabakh war? Yes, Turkey was involved in this war and I would argue at the time that there would be only one winner with Russia’s dominance growing even larger in the region. I regret to say that I was right. Neither Azerbaijan, nor Armenia and nor even Turkey came out of this war as a winner. I think all of them lost this war and Russia increased its influence in this region. This window of opportunity should be valued by all sides – both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
But they may also pose the question of whether this is possible with Erdogan or his Government. This is not simply a matter of Erdogan himself. Turkey’s foerign policy is what matters! Turkey lost with its aggressive foerign policy. Not only did Turkey lose peace but it also emerged in an economic recession.
I see only one way out for Turkey today - restoring normalization and developing relationships with neighbors once again. I place great importance in persisting with such a policy. This policy should demand efforts from all players – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Greece. Does this new stage relate in any way to the upcoming elections in Turkey? It sure does! Look, after 2015, Erdogan went for tough politics, investing in armaments and wars, and it backlashed with a profound economic crisis.
A significant portion of Turkey’s national budget is spent on security. As a result of the political tensions, Turkey’s foreign affairs degenerated while causing troubles to the economy as well. Opportunities for export were reduced. Turkey’s reputation deteriorated, too. Turkey is a state run by an autocratic leader, and yes, it began to be perceived as a non-democratic country which is the reason behind the economic crisis․ My assessment is that the democratic crisis brought about the economic crisis. After all, elections are coming in a year.
Erdogan and his supporters will be profiled with a more democratic discourse, which will be a little hard, given their large deviation from the democratic path. Talking about the opposition though, they too should claim that Turkey’s foreign policy grows more pacifistic. They also fail to claim this with sufficient clarity, while we, as the Peoples' Democratic Party and a democratic alliance, voice these statements more loudly and we believe Turkey has no other path to follow. Because of its tough foreign policy, Turkey lost both its peace and well-being, in other words it sank into an economic crisis. It’s time to turn back to peace politics.
Looking at the Turkish bureaucratic establishment, namely the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one can notice the political will to achieve that․ Yes, we could have prejudices here, we can allow ourselves to question whether a country that was leading war politics two years ago, will make steps in this direction․ You talked about opportunities. Political transformations have been surging around the world which we are all witnessing today. Is Turkey trying to take on a new role in this context? Until recently, Turkey was not viewed as an essential player, because the importance of NATO had been largely diminished. As the President of France Macron put it two years ago, “it was experiencing a brain death”, but the war in Ukraine revived NATO once again.
This in turn increased the significance of Turkey. Turkey is an important country within NATO, notably in the East, and it has a particular geo-political significance with respect to control over straits. For instance, the Chancellor of Germany had paid a visit here a week before the war started. Why did he visit us? Because they need gas! And discussions are now evolving around alternatives to the Russian gas. He came over to negotiate with Erdogan on the transportation of gas from Azerbaijan, the Mediterranean or Iraq over the territory of Turkey. This is what increased the significance of Turkey. There is also the economic factor… Absolutely! That’s because this war has strengthened Turkey’s role particularly with respect to economic and trade corridors.
Its significance has also increased owing to Turkey’s positioning as a vanguard state for NATO. This, indeed, is a privilege on the one hand and a disadvantage on the other, because especially in terms of this normalization policy, Turkey has kicked off this process as a way of overcoming its own frustration, in some sense. However, Turkey might now reconsider that policy of overcoming frustration. This is just one problem among many that exist in Turkey today.
We have to be contemplating this issue. Leaders of Armenia should contemplate this, as should leaders in Azerbaijan, because if Turkey is profiled as a bridge in relationships with the West, This will magnify Turkey’s impact on the countries in the region. Let’s get back to our region then. Turkey launched very active diplomacy in the aftermath of the 44-day war [in Artsakh] introducing what’s called the “3+3 platform” into the agenda. What is the purpose of this platform and what could be its role in the region, in your opinion? I don’t believe that the 3+3 platform will succeed, because particularly Georgia has certain objections to it and Iran’s feedback wasn’t positive enough to this. Perhaps Iran doesn’t object to it, but it doesn’t treat it well enough either.
I think at the moment this format may work out well only for the normalization processes between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia, because these three countries have to develop trust for each other and normalize relations. Only if this proves possible will other states become a part of that platform, yet particularly considering Georgia’s rejection I don’t think that the 3+3 format will work. First of all, these three states should normalize relations bilaterally or trilaterally, if they find it necessary, A discourse on a peace agreement has to be in place by all means, while the relations between Turkey and Armenia must be normalized.
Turkey and Armenia should start a direct dialogue without a third party, Russia, for instance, which makes normalization of relations a necessity. As I said earlier though, normalization does not imply settlement of all problems. Do you believe the newly launched normalization process to really be bilateral or is there a factor of a third state as well? Of course there is! Perhaps special representatives of Turkey and Armenia meet in private, but, as the English saying goes “the elephant in the room”, that is Russia, is definitely a part of these meetings. That’s because the two countries have a low level of mutual trust and there is still a large amount of distrust in each other. Armenian society in particular has prejudices in view of Turkey’s role in the war that took place only a year and a half ago which inflated these prejudices.
There are still problems and tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh today, and there are prejudices against Azerbaijan as well. The more relations are normalized between the two countries, the less they will need to turn to Russia for arbitration. However, at the moment Russia does not hinder the bilateral relations. This, in turn, demonstrates Russia’s will to move the processes in this direction.
I have repeated many times that if Turkey became the one to generate prejudices a year and a half ago, then it is Turkey that must break those prejudices, increase confidence, and take more proactive steps. I continue to propagate this to Turkish authorities in the Parliament. Isn’t Azerbaijan a factor in the normalization processes any longer? Azerbaijan is certainly the other elephant in the room in the normalization process between the two countries. Turkey continues to claim, as Erdogan himself has stated, that the normalization of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations lies at the other end of its own normalization processes.
We may view this in the following way: you see, they are setting a precondition that if it doesn’t work out well with Azerbaijan, this process will halt as well. We can consider it this way and assess it as a negative factor. But I suggest considering this as a positive factor as well. Both the Turkey-Armenia normalization processes and the peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia should be… Framed as a comprehensive package? …driven forward together.
The simultaneous implementation of both processes may result in succeeding with both. The simultaneous implementation of both processes may result in succeeding with both. You may think of me as naive and romantic, but these are the directions I invest efforts in, because let’s consider a situation where Turkey-Armenia normalization processes continue, but suddenly new problems arise in Artsakh. Do you think it will have an impact? We won’t even have an opportunity to continue the process. Of course, it will affect the process. With this in mind, we should view the simultaneous advancement of the two processes as an advantage. But there is more to it than that: if all three states lost in the 44-day war, all three of them should now display the will to succeed in these two processes.
In my opinion, Azerbaijan acknowledges this too and it should recognize that they also lost this war. They are dominated by Russia at the moment, as is Armenia for that matter. Breaking out of this situation and driving more independent politics can be through solving our own problems. We must evaluate this window of opportunity very well. There was a similar window of opportunity for the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey in 1994, after the war ended in 1993.
Levon Ter-Petrosyan was elaborating on this at the time, but nationalists in Turkey and Armenia, as well as nationalists in the Diaspora were standing behind the failure of this process. So, the window of opportunity was there, but we lost it. In 2008, owing to the "Football Diplomacy", another window of opportunity was opened, but then again, unfortunately, both Turkish nationalists, under the pressure of Azerbaijan, and the Armenian Diaspora labeled it as a betrayal, brought the process to failure and regrettably, we experienced a war where everyone was defeated. Today too we have a window of opportunity. This window of opportunity will not last forever. This is why we have to evaluate the situation properly, because in the aftermath of disasters societies either learn lessons and consider going for peace, starting to talk and shake hands because everyone feels defeated, or they fail to reconcile and enter a new war which is sure to lead to final extinction.
I think we should start to consider showing the willingness to live side by side, because as peoples of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey inhabiting a shared region, we have to build those dreams anew. Otherwise, we will continue experiencing losses together. We discussed societies and peoples. Due to the work you do, you often interact with Turkish politicians as well. How do they feel about the normalization processes? I’d like to say that I have stated my readiness to take any kind of responsibility with respect to these normalization processes. In this respect, I often have meetings on highest levels with the Turkish Government, Parliament politicians, with persons in charge of the foreign relations of the political parties, with the ruling parties.
Let me emphasize the positive aspect: there are no objections to the normalization processes in the Turkey-Armenia relations. Everyone is looking forward to it because everyone saw that Turkey was one of the losing sides in the war. This said, Turkey also realized that peace is the only way to succeed, because it acknowledges its defeat in the war, too. So there are no objections with this respect and this is a critical fact. This is what I call a window of opportunity. There are two nationalist parties in the Mejlis and even they do not oppose this and they believe that the processes should continue. With these considerations, I think it is quite a valuable turning point.
Within six months from now new events may evolve and they might no longer have the same dispositions. For that reason and while there are no obstacles either in the society or in politics, we must seize the moment. However, as far as I can see, prejudices in this respect exist in Armenian society. Yes, the Armenian Government has shown its will demonstrating its support to the process, but at the moment, and I am pretty sure of this, any tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan, especially related with Karabakh, will prove toxic for the normalization process as well. That is why we must accelerate the normalization processes between Turkey and Armenia, as well as between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
In this sense, I am calling on the Turkish Government to take greater responsibility with this issue, as well as on the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan to be equally in charge with this respect to demonstrate results of the process to the nations of all three countries. That is to say that we all must show results to the Armenian, Turkish and Azerbaijani societies. The process of normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey is currently run without preconditions, or so they say. However, one way or the other, the two sides have to find a common ground on the issue of the Armenian Genocide. What could be the possible scenario over this issue? So, when the two nations start to talk and all lies, slander and hate speech are removed from history, I believe it will be easier to discuss this issue.
Because, as you can imagine, almost half of the inhabitants of Van, Yozgat,Kayseri, Sebastia, Malatia were Armenians, and now they are gone. When I bring this up in the parliament, I am faced with the following problem: the Turkish society is ready to say yes, there have been evil events, but there comes the problem with the word "Genocide". the Turkish society is ready to say yes, there have been evil events, but there comes the problem with the word "Genocide". Why so? That’s because there is a certain approach with respect to the Genocide: it is that genocide is such an evil act, that we could have never committed it. That’s the prevalent way of thinking․
Meanwhile, we aren’t able to speak about our history either. It resembles winning or losing a contest. In the parliament I keep inviting to talk about this issue and discuss what happened back then and the responsibility of this country and the state authorities of the time. Only after having done this as a society of Turkey shall we be able to call things by their names. At the times of these happenings the word genocide didn’t exist and it was coined after 1945. This is how I recounted these events in the parliament: my grandmother used to call it “Mets Yeghern” which means “great disaster” in Armenian. If the Turkish nation were able to find a name to these events back then, if they were able to name it in the parliament, ask the Armenian nation for forgiveness and label it as “Mets Yeghern”, then that’s how it would be called and it would mean “a great disaster.”
Instead, we are now discussing whether or not it was a genocide, whereas what happened was a human tragedy and that tragedy is still begging for justice. 107 years have passed since then and my grandmother left this world without seeing that justice. She was among the first victims of the Genocide and among the first who was orphaned. She yearned for justice for so many years and didn’t find any. My father also left the world without finding justice. I am the third generation and I’m also struggling for justice.
I think that if Turkey grows into a democratic state, it will also be able to show the will to recognize the fact of the Genocide. Only a democratic Turkey can face the fact of the Genocide, because democratic societies are able to face their past In that sense, this might be the fate of us Armenians. Normalizing relations between Turkey and Greece and achieving peace is a path of democratization for Turkey. There are three major problems in Turkey, three identity issues – with Kurds, Armenians and Greeks.
I believe that establishment of peace with the Kurds, Armenians and Greeks will transform Turkey into a democratic state as well. That’s because the Turkish nationalists keep using the Kurds, Armenians and Greeks as trump cards, featuring them as enemies. I have one last question that I ask all the guests of our program- both parties pose political and economic interests and aspirations at the core of this process.
In your opinion, what could serve as the moral ground for the normalization of relations? My optimism is cautious and yes, I am worried that this process may fail at any moment or confront some problems, but we have to bear in mind that there are no winners in war and no losers in peace. Every other step of the normalization process will suggest a weaker possibility of a conflict or war. Thank you for the interview! Thanks you! Garo Paylan was our guest on the Aliq Media platform. See you next time!
2022-04-26 05:28
