January was marked with events that further complicated the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations. The ruling of the Constitutional Court of Armenia was the central event. Although the ruling supported the Turkish-Armenian protocols on normalized relations, improving their chances of being ratified, it led to strong Turkish criticism. In the preamble of its ruling, the Court presented its interpretation of the two documents, once more stressing the viewing of the Armenian side on the limits of their applications. The Turkish side accused Yerevan of attempting to revise the documents.

BACKGROUND: For the protocols signed on October 10 to enter into force, they need to be ratified by the parliaments of both countries. The Turkish government sent them to the parliament as early as on October 20; however, they have not yet been put on the agenda. Under Armenian legislation, every international document should be examined by the Constitutional Court to guarantee its compliance with the Constitution, and only after that it can be sent to the parliament. The Armenian President sent the protocols to the Constitutional Court In November, and the Court made its ruling on January 12. The Court ruled that the protocols do comply with the basic law of the country, so it cleared the way for them to be sent to the National Assembly for ratification.

At the same time, the Court added a preamble to its ruling, in which it reiterated once more what was repeatedly stated earlier by government officials including President Serzh Sargsyan and Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan. The preamble addressed three issues, which have been the subject of discord between Armenia and Turkey. First, it stated that ratification of the protocols does not mean that Armenia abandons its efforts to achieve worldwide recognition of the massacres of 1915 as genocide; the government is obliged to do this by the Constitution. Second, it does not mean that Armenia accepts any link between normalization with Turkey and the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict; third, normalization with Turkey and opening the existing borders stipulated by the Protocols does not mean that Armenia officially recognizes the current de facto Turkish-Armenian border.

Six days after the court decision was made, the Turkish foreign ministry issued a statement claiming that “… this decision contains preconditions and restrictive provisions which impair the letter and spirit of the Protocols. The said decision undermines the very reason for negotiating these Protocols as well as their fundamental objective. This approach cannot be accepted on our part.” This marked the start of an intense campaign in Turkey against the ruling of the Armenian Constitutional Court, which allegedly jeopardizes the future of the protocols.

Another relevant event concerning the Turkish-Armenian protocols was the visit of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Moscow on January 11-12. During the visit, the two countries made progress in developing joint energy projects and discussed regional issues.

IMPLICATIONS: The events following the Constitutional Court ruling are not new, as Armenia and Turkey are simply repeating what they have said earlier. The dispute on the above-mentioned three issues have endangered the protocol signature process from the very beginning, when Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandian initially refused to sign the protocols in Zurich on October 10. The refusal came after he learned that his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu was going to make a statement in which the above-mentioned three issues would be interpreted in a way contrary to the Armenian position.

The signing ceremony, at which the foreign ministers of Russia, the U.S., France and the EU had arrived, was delayed for three hours and eventually took place only after the parties had agreed not to make any statements at all. In later months, both the Turkish and the Armenian sides have repeatedly voiced their positions on these issues. Evidently, Turkey is using the Court ruling as an additional reason to exert pressure on Armenia. This was made clear by Erdogan’s statement on January 20: “We have never taken the protocol to our Constitutional Court. We took it directly to our parliament, without making changes. … This is proof of our sincerity. Armenia has tried to change the text”. This statement ignored the fact that Court confirmation of international documents could not be avoided in Armenia as this procedure is required by its legislation.

Hence, the future of the Turkish-Armenian protocols remains as obscure as before, each party seeking to interpret them in their own favor to maximize benefits after their possible ratification. In addition, the Turkish government is forced to make its position more rigid under pressure of the forces opposing ratification, including domestic opposition as well as Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan and its lobby in Turkey. Meanwhile, the great powers make every effort to push the normalization process ahead. In particular, the U.S. has denounced the Turkish protests by expressing its support for the ruling of the Armenian Constitutional Court. During Erdogan’s visit to Moscow, the Russian leaders warned him not to link the process of Turkish-Armenian normalization to the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. They underlined that these issues are complicated and connecting them in a package would make their solution even more difficult.

It remains to be seen whether further progress can be made on the ratification of the protocols. Armenia seems unlikely to change its positions on the above three points of contention. Hence, the situation depends mainly on the position of the Turkish side. If the Turkish government finds a way to soften its position, the protocols may be ratified. This would be greatly aided by progress in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Some progress, although very limited, was made during the Russia-mediated meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Sochi on January 25. The parties agreed to a preamble of the Basic Principles of the Nagorno Karabakh settlement as a first step in forming this document.

Alternatively, Turkey may decide to pose demands such as revising the ruling of the Armenian CC, which is final and not reviewable. In that case, the protocols will not be ratified and the parties will find themselves in the positions they were at before September 5, 2008, when Turkey initiated the normalization process with Armenia after sixteen years of closed borders, during which concessions on Karabakh in favor of Azerbaijan were a precondition strictly voiced by Turkey for its normalization with Armenia.

CONCLUSIONS: The prospects for ratifying the Turkish-Armenian protocols remain unclear after Turkey’s protests against the ruling of the Armenian Constitutional Court. The ruling has become a basis for restoring the old dispute about the limits of the documents. In particular, Ankara and Yerevan differ in their views on the subject if the protocols are about normalization of bilateral relations only or whether they concern other issues as well, such as the problem of the Armenian Genocide and the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh. Washington and Moscow support the Armenian point of view that the protocols are about normalization between the two countries only. Although both Yerevan and Ankara accuse each other for jeopardizing the protocols, both countries declare their intention to go ahead with the ratification and implementing them. Hence ratification of the protocols and subsequent normalization is not yet to be excluded. 

AUTHOR’S BIO: Haroutiun Khachatrian is an analyst on political and economic problems based in Yerevan, Armenia.