It was not supposed to be this way. Rapprochement or normalization between Armenia and Turkey was supposed to be a normal process, signaling a historic new beginning. Two states, signing mutually acceptable documents, respecting each other’s past and intending to share a future.
Instead, we have been presented documents which reject the past, which endanger a stable future. This, at least in part because the processes were co-opted for domestic political purposes.
In Turkey, a popular government, eager to improve its place in the region and its image in the world, decided to open the border with Armenia, but by exacting a price from Armenia.
In Armenia, an unpopular government, eager to improve its own image in the world and its place at home, decided to take the risky step of pursuing closer relations, but without considering the costs.
Armenians of Armenia felt confused and powerless. Armenians of the Diaspora felt ignored. When Armenia’s president decided the way to round up support for the protocols was by visiting the Diaspora, and not the various regions and cities of Armenia, the Diaspora leadership decided to act.
His first stop, Paris, was met with disaster. The French police had to forcibly remove the Armenian demonstrators who had gathered to express their disagreement and frustration. What should have been an occasion for a unified look forward, turned into a public fiasco.
Now the Armenian president must calculate how to explain signing documents that don’t, by any estimation, enjoy popular support among Armenians anywhere.