Материал: Payaslian S., The History of Armenia From the Origins to the Present

caused hundreds of thousands of Armenians and Azerbaijanis to become refugees.13 After two years of vacillation, Russian mediation drew Moscow closer to Armenia for strategic reasons largely in response to the engagement of western multinational corporations with Baku in cultivating the Caspian oilfields. Also, since Armenian and Azerbaijani membership in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in early 1992 enabled the latter to play, through the Minsk Group, a direct role in the mediation of the conflict, Russia deemed it essential to reassert its presence in its traditional sphere of influence.14 Azerbaijan continued to reject Karabagh’s claim to sovereignty as a violation of its own territorial integrity both by the secessionists in Karabagh and by the government of Armenia. The latter maintained that it had no territorial aspirations but would insist on defending Karabagh’s right to self-determination. In fact, Erevan argued, the economic blockade imposed on Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan necessitated close ties with Karabagh in security and economic matters. Moreover, the hostile environment compelled the leadership in Erevan to continue to rely on Russia for military security, with Russian soldiers guarding the 214-miles-long Armenian-Turkish border.15

The broader issues concerning the political and economic difficulties confronting Karabagh and their implications for Ter Petrosyan’s foreign policy objectives were obvious. His government sought to balance between the demands of the military conflict in Karabagh with Armenia’s own national interests. The early part of 1994 witnessed a number of diplomatic initiatives to address the economic crisis. While in Paris in January 1994, President of the Armenian National Assembly, Babgen Ararktsyan, emphasized that the republic’s domestic political and economic conditions were inextricably tied to the Karabagh crisis. In Germany, he noted that the Armenian government would welcome German technical assistance to reactivate the Metsamor nuclear plant. The European Community, he maintained in his speech before the European Parliament, must appreciate his nation’s improved performance in democratization and human rights as well as economic reforms, and the lack of such progress in Azerbaijan. The European Community, he added, would have to acknowledge the urgency of its own involvement in the resolution of the Karabagh conflict.16

Such diplomatic initiatives with western European countries notwithstanding, Erevan considered relations with Russia of paramount strategic import both in the context of bilateral ties and within the Commonwealth of Independent States. Yet particularly troubling for Armenia were Russian nationalist, xenophobic attitudes and Communist old-guard visions of resuscitating the Soviet Union. For example, in March 1996 the Russian State Duma adopted two resolutions, sponsored by the Communist Party of Russia and other parties, denouncing the Belovezhsk

accords of December 1991, which had established the CIS as the successor to the Soviet Union. President Boris Yeltsin immediately ridiculed the resolutions as “scandalous” and instructed Foreign Minister Yevgenii Primakov to communicate to foreign states and international organizations his government’s opposition to the resolutions and to assure them that Russia would continue normal relations with the international community and meet its international obligations. Ter Petrosyan, at the time meeting with President Saparmurad Niyazov in Turkmenistan, severely criticized the resolutions as a challenge to Armenia’s sovereignty. Negotiations with Niyazov led to bilateral agreements for the restructuring of Erevan’s $34 million debt to Turkmenistan for the delivery of natural gas.17

Not surprisingly, Erevan’s relations with Ankara proved extremely contentious. Driven in large part by the economic difficulties of nationand state-building, the Ter Petrosyan government was prepared to establish diplomatic and commercial ties with Turkey. The geopolitical imperatives as dictated by the neighboring and major powers, on the one hand, and diasporan politics, on the other, delineated the parameters of Ter Petrosyan’s policy options regarding Turkey and matters pertaining to the Armenian Genocide. Contrary to predictions in the early 1990s that the collapse of the Soviet Union would diminish Turkey’s geostrategic significance as an ally within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization because that country no longer served as a shield against Soviet expansionism, Turkish foreign policy remained important for the United States, one of Ankara’s principal allies since the 1920s, and even gained in significance for Israel, whose security concerns with respect to Muslim fundamentalism led to close ties with Turkey. The United States and Turkey had maintained good, albeit at times contentious, relations for nearly two centuries, and they had not permitted issues such as the Armenian Genocide to jeopardize their commercial and security ties, as demonstrated by the fact that the U.S. Department of State intervened on behalf of Turkey to prevent the production of Franz Werfel’s Forty Days of Musa Dagh (a masterful novel based on the Armenian Genocide) by MGM Studios in 1935—that is, before the creation of NATO in 1949.18 During the Cold War, Turkey received billions of dollars in U.S. economic and military aid, and since the collapse of the Soviet Union it has continued to exert considerable influence in Washington.

In developing bilateral ties with Turkey, the Ter Petrosyan government had to address two issues of immediate concern: Would he insist that Turkey accept responsibility for the genocide as a precondition for the normalization of relations? Would he disassociate his government from the conflict in Karabagh in order to improve relations with Turkey? Further complicating the situation was the Armenian-Turkish border inherited

from the Soviet-Turkish treaty of 1921. Would the newly independent government revive Armenian claims to the historic homeland now in eastern Turkey? The Ter Petrosyan government was hardly in a position to resolve these questions in a manner favorable to Armenia. Their resolution would require the vast accouterments of military power and economic strength, an unrealistic scenario even under the best of circumstances. Instead, Ter Petrosyan opted for an Armenian-Turkish rapprochement, with hopes that Armenians and Turks could overcome their historical animosities. As he sought to develop ties with Turkey, Ter Petrosyan placed a premium on first revitalizing Armenia’s economy. Issues related to the genocide and the sovereignty of Karabagh, his government maintained, could be addressed only after Armenia acquired sufficient economic and diplomatic strength. Accordingly, Ter Petrosyan urged Armenian diasporan communities to moderate their stance on the international recognition of the genocide, a policy that was denounced most vocally by the Dashnaktsutiun.19

Under President Turgut Ozal (1989–1993), Turkey viewed the collapse of the USSR as an opportunity to expand its relations with the former Soviet republics. His government hoped to see Russia neutralized in the Caucasus, which would enhance Turkey’s role in the region. Seizing the moment, Volkan Vural, the Turkish ambassador to Moscow, visited Erevan in April 1991 to negotiate bilateral agreements. The Ozal government also initiated the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), a regional arrangement to encourage commercial ties. At the Istanbul Summit in June 1992, government leaders from eleven countries, including Armenia, established the BSEC, with its headquarters in Istanbul, and its charter entered into force on May 1, 1999.20 Discussions were also under way between Erevan and Ankara in 1991 for Armenia to gain access to the Trebizond port on the Black Sea. As the war in Karabagh escalated during the same year, Ozal strengthened his alliance with and extended military support to Azerbaijani president Ayaz Mutalibov. Ozal issued open threats toward Armenia in early 1993 and stationed forces on the Armenian border ostensibly to control Kurdish revolutionary activities; in September 1993, under his successor President Suleyman Demirel, at least two Turkish aircraft flying in Armenian airspace were reported by the defense ministry of Armenia.21 Nevertheless, Turkey refrained from overt participation in the Karabagh war perhaps largely because of its cautious approach not to provoke a military clash with Russia, which in turn could potentially have drawn NATO into the conflict. Russian Army Chief of Staff General Shaposhnikov reportedly “warned that if Turkey entered in militarily, the conflict could risk turning into World War III.”22 As one analyst has correctly noted, “The Turkish and Russian positions in the mid-1990s were resonant of the imperial chess-playing attitudes of earlier centuries.”23

The geopolitical situation in the region led to close ties between Iran and Armenia, and Iran provided much-needed economic support for Armenia, the junior partner. Their bilateral relations included agreements on energy, transportation, finance, and cultural relations. Iran’s exports to Armenia increased from $14 million in 1993 to $82 million in 1995; that figure increased to $125 million in 1996.24 At a time when Armenia desperately needed economic support, Iran provided an important political ally and an avenue for economic development (if not survival) against the Turkish-Azeri economic blockade. For Iran, itself the subject of U.S. sanctions, closer relations with Armenia offered an opportunity to expand its economic and political influence vis-à-vis its major competitors in the region, Turkey and Russia. In 1995 the Iran-Armenia Energy Program was established to encourage economic development, and in 1996 Iran began construction of electric lines to Armenia. Armenia’s Minister of Trade and Tourism, Vahan Melkonyan, and Iran’s Ambassador to Armenia Hamid Reza Nikkar Esfahani discussed development of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, while Armenia’s Foreign Minister Vahan Papazyan and Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran Mahmud Vayezi met in Erevan to negotiate expansion of bilateral economic ties and regional stability. These bilateral talks continued in 1997 in Tehran, where President Mohammad Khatami, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh (Minister of Oil), and Hoseyn Namazi (Minister of Economy and Finance), met with leading Armenian officials. Cultural relations complemented economic and political relations. In July 1996, while the ministers focused on bilateral commercial ties, Catholicos Garegin I Sarkissian, Ambassador Esfahani, and Vayezi met at Echmiadzin to discuss promotion of cultural and educational relations between Iran and Armenia.25

One of the most fundamental decisions made by Ter Petrosyan concerned the Armenian Church. After the death of Catholicos Vazgen I in 1995, Ter Petrosyan invited Catholicos Karekin II Sarkissian of the catholicosate of Cilicia (Antelias, Lebanon) to the catholicosal throne of the Mother See at Echmiadzin. He was elected as Catholicos Garegin I of All Armenians in April 1995. In Antelias he was succeeded by Catholicos Aram I Keshishian. The Armenian communities of the Cilician prelacies, which are also closely associated with the Dashnaktsutiun, considered Ter Petrosyan’s invitation to Garegin II to head the Mother See a few months after the arrest of the Dashnakist leaders in Armenia as a Machiavellean ploy par excellence to sow divisions within the party and the communities associated with the Cilician catholicosate throughout the diaspora. In matters of policy, the Armenian Church at Echmiadzin closely supported the government, as had been the case in Armenian history for centuries.

In January 1996 Catholicos Garegin I visited the United States and Canada. He had served as prelate of the eastern United States and Canada

in the mid-1970s, prior to his appointment in 1977 as coadjutor by Catholicos Khoren I Paroyan of the Great House of Cilicia, and he succeeded Khoren I after the latter’s death in 1983. During his tour of North America, both the Cilician and Echmiadzin communities—whose intracommunal tensions in the United States extend at least as far back as the assassination of Archbishop Ghevond Durian in December 1933—held serious reservations regarding Garegin I’s transition from catholicos of the former to catholicos of the latter. The Cilician community considered him a traitor, while the Echmiadzin community viewed his transformation with grave suspicion. By the end of his tour Catholicos Garegin I appeared to have gained the confidence of both communities, although no public opinion surveys exist to verify that fact. In addition to visiting the Armenian communities and leaders, Garegin I also met with President Bill Clinton at the White House, with Governor George Pataki of New York, and with Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco.

Garegin I’s visit to the United States gave rise to rumors in the Armenian communities that his visit, a few months after his election as Catholicos of All Armenians, signified an initiative on the part of both catholicoi to end the jurisdictional divisions across the diaspora. In his messages to the communities, Garegin I encourage the public to think about the “new era in Armenian history [which] heralds a new era for the church.” He further emphasized that “an administrative division that was caused by an old world order does not need to continue under today’s political conditions.”26 Nevertheless, speculations regarding unification of the two churches during his reign proved premature. In March 1999 Catholicos Garegin I also visited Pope John Paul II. After his death in June, Garegin I was succeeded by Catholicos Garegin II Nersisyan, who was consecrated as the Supreme Patriarch of All Armenians at Echmiadzin in November 1999.

KARABAGH AGAIN

That the Karabagh conflict had become an integral part of Armenian politics was reconfirmed when in March 1997 Ter Petrosyan appointed Kocharyan prime minister; he was succeeded in Karabagh by the first foreign minister of Karabagh, Arkady Ghukasyan. The appointment of Kocharyan as Armenia’s prime minister had broad ramifications for its domestic politics and foreign policy. At the time bringing Kocharyan and by extension Karabagh into future negotiations regarding the region’s status might have seemed a valid strategic move. Soon thereafter, however, geopolitical and economic considerations in the “tough neighborhood” of the Caucasus appeared to have compelled Ter Petrosyan to shift his