Hurriyet Daily News, by Fulya Özerkan -- As the current crisis in normalization efforts turns into a 'blame game' between Turkey and Armenia, one Caucasus researcher says it is important to ask not what is going to happen in the next five weeks or five months, but what is going to happen in the next five years. 'I am quite optimistic for the next five years,' he tells the Daily News.

With the current deadlock triggered by an Armenian court ruling clouding the fate of the protocols on diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia, leaders of the two sides are pointing their fingers at each other.

Faced with a backlash from regional ally Azerbaijan and the opposition at home, Turkey has accused Armenia’s constitutional court of delivering a ruling that contradicts the already agreed-upon accords. Yerevan, in return, has warned of a breakdown in reconciliation efforts, casting doubt over the protocols that were the result of two years’ negotiations between the countries’ diplomats.

“Making predictions is very difficult in such cases because there is incredible pressure both in Armenia and Turkey,” said Dr. Hans Gutbrod, regional director of the Caucasus Research and Resource Center in Tbilisi.

“In many similar situations, one tends to ask what is going to happen in the next five weeks or in the next five months, but the important thing is what is going to happen in the next five years,” Gutbrod told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. “I am sure in the next five weeks or months we will see a lot of challenges and a ‘blame game,’ but I am quite optimistic for the next five years.”

Role of external actors

Frustrated by the court ruling, Ankara is currently working on a legal text to prove its “non-conformity” with the protocols. The document will later be dispatched to Switzerland, which brokered the talks between Turkey and Armenia, and to the co-chairs of the Minsk Group leading Karabakh talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The text has not yet been finalized, diplomatic sources told the Daily News.

“To look at a process like that, you have to get back together at the table over and over again, and at some point reach a breakthrough. External actors can also play a constructive role,” Gutbrod added.

In a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu relayed his country’s concerns about the way the court ruling refers to the 1915 killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and how it cites a document referring to eastern Turkey as “western Armenia.”

Clinton, who was praised for her role in saving the Turkey-Armenia accord in Zurich in October, pledged to take a hand in the current deadlock, according to the diplomatic sources.

‘Turkish reaction unfair’

“I don’t find anything unusual or inappropriate in the court’s decision. Unlike the claims of ‘preconditions’ made by the Turkish side, neither the court’s ruling nor its lengthy opinion make any direct reference to the ‘genocide’ whatsoever and are not reflected in the wording of the ruling,” Richard Giragosian, director of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, told the Daily News.

“I find the Turkish reaction not only disingenuous, but unfair as there was never any doubt over the Armenian side’s commitment to ensure a speedy passage of the protocols,” he added.

The Armenian court’s Jan. 12 decision established that the protocols with Turkey conformed to the country’s constitution, but Article 5 of its reasoned decision stipulated that the deal must not contradict Paragraph 11 of the Declaration of Independence. This section angered Ankara as it states, “The Republic of Armenia stands in support of the task of achieving international recognition of the 1915 genocide in Ottoman Turkey and western Armenia.”

It is not yet clear if the Armenian government will submit to its parliament the court’s reasoned decision annexed to the protocols.

‘Give credit to diplomacy’

“It must be the diplomacy that should be given credit and the ground for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia should not be shaken,” said Burcu Gültekin Punsmann, a Caucasus expert at the Turkish think tank TEPAV. She said attempts to interpret diplomatic texts and read between the lines were being carried from academic circles to the official level.

“That approach, threatening reconciliation reached by the two states, risks collapsing the two-year diplomatic efforts,” Punsmann added, advising the two sides to remain loyal to the protocols, in which every wording was delicately selected.

According to Giragosian, withdrawing the protocols would be a serious setback. “The repudiation of all obligations and expectations that are now squarely on the Turkish side is surely not any kind of graceful exit strategy,” he said.

“The crisis seems to be getting worse, as Turkey has so far only sought to enlarge this into an issue much more divisive than it should be. As this process has already stalled and slowed down significantly, I am increasingly worried that Turkey may have derailed the entire effort on its accord,” Giragosian added. “Hopefully, both sides can recover and find a new way beyond this rather exaggerated crisis, but it remains a test of Turkish political will much more than a challenge for the Armenian side.”

Restoring neighborly ties

For Gutbrod, Armenia is the country faced with tremendous challenges – including corruption, its relationship with neighboring Turkey and Azerbaijan, unemployment and migration. The latter threatens the future of Armenia because people are leaving the country, he added.

“We know from our surveys that 48 percent of Armenians say they would like to leave their country to work abroad. Twenty percent of Armenians say they would like to leave forever and never return. That’s not a recipe for long-term success of a country,” the researcher said.

“Unemployment is very difficult to address. Corruption is the same,” Gutbrod added. “But the relationship with neighboring countries can really be addressed.”