BY AMALYA GABRIELYAN

The year 2009 was rich with political and economical events that had a big importance not only for Armenia, but for the whole region as well. One of them – not an event but a process – is, of course, the first steps to the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations.

Armenia and Turkey — two neighboring countries that didn’t have any diplomatic relations since 1993 when the border between these countries was closed by the initiative of official Ankara. If we try to follow the history of this issue, it will take us to the year 1915, which is well-known because of the event that shocked the whole civilized world: the genocide of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire, where millions of Armenians were murdered, while a multitude of cultural, historical and religious monuments were destroyed.

Many countries have already accepted the events of 1915 as genocide and condemned it. Official Ankara continues denying it.

The other reason for such complicated relations between Armenia and Turkey is the fact that Turkey supported Azerbaijan in the Karabakh conflict.

The improvement of the relations between Armenia and Turkey started in 2008, but the real steps in this direction were made in 2009. On February 21, 2008 the president of Turkey Abdullah Gul congratulated the newly elected Armenian President Serge Sarkisian and said that it was a good opportunity for improving Armenia-Turkey relations.

To improve relations you must first have relations to improve. But official Yerevan began to like that idea, and soon, on July 5, 2008, Serge Sarkisian invited Abdullah Gul to Yerevan, to watch the FIFA World Cup qualifier football match between the Armenian and Turkish teams. The invitation was accepted, and on September 6 the Turkish president came to Armenia. After these events that were later called “football diplomacy,” the relations between Armenia and Turkey began to develop, and rather quickly, but not without difficulties.

One of these difficulties was, of course, the Karabakh problem and the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan that were being connected with the improvement of Armenia-Turkey relations. On April 3, 2009, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said that “It is not possible for us to make a sound decision regarding Armenia before a solution to the Karabakh issue.”

On April 22, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey came to an agreement on a “roadmap” that would improve the relations between two countries.

On October 10 in Zurich, Switzerland, in the presence of Hillary Clinton, EU’s High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana and the foreign ministers of Switzerland, France and Russia, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey, Eduard Nalbandian and Ahmed Davutoglu, respectively, signed an accord to open the borders between the two countries and to set diplomatic relations.

On October 14, “Football Diplomacy 2” took place: President Serge Sarkisian accepted the invitation of the Turkish president and went to Turkey to watch the Armenia-Turkey football match.

It was supposed that the Armenia-Turkey border would be open by the end of 2009, but the Turkish parliament hasn’t ratified the agreement yet. Turkish officials in their speeches continue to connect Armenia-Turkey relations with the solution of the Karabakh conflict, despite the fact that the representatives of the negotiating countries and official Yerevan claim that no preconditions must exist to improve Armenia-Turkey relations.

Amalya Gabrielyan is a contributor to Yerevan Report.