Turkey Beats Armenia
Earlier Saturday PoliGazette reported that Turkey’s President Abdullah Gül arrived in the capital of Armenia, Yerevan, for a historic visit. For the first time in years a leading Turkish politician, the president of the country even, visited its neighbor.
As said, the relationship between the two countries has been troubled for years. The main reasons for this are Armenia’s attitude with regards to what it calls the Armenian Genocide and its invasion of Azerbaijan - a Turkic country - in 1992.
Gül decided to visit Armenia after its president, Serzh Sargsyan, invited him to watch today’s football match between the two countries. After much deliberation Gül accepted the offer and there the two were: watching the two countries fight out there political differences on a football field.
Sadly for Armenians and luckily for Turks, the latter won an easy victory: 0-2.
It was quite an important match. It was part of the qualification round for the World Championships football which will be organized two years from now, in 2010. In the past the numbers one and two of each group would qualify but this time around only the number one will be allowed to compete on the highest level.
As such Turkey could not afford to lose from a by all accounts weaker opponent such as Armenia.
And it succeeded quite easily. The heroes of the match - possibly not of the day, for one could very well argue that the real heroes were Gül and Sargsyan - were Semih and Tuncay. After 90 minutes the score was 0-2.
I have mix feelings about Gul’s visit. On the one hand, it is a good idea to start some kind of diplomatic relationship between 2 countries but on the other, is there a proper thought out plan for the future from AKP. I doubt it! So to call Gul a hero is a little over the top for me. He is a little lap dog of the Erdogan Government… A huge disappointment in every way.
I have very good feelings about President Gul’s visit to Yerevan. However we look at it one thing is clear: the ice is broken. Nationalists on both side agree about the "dangers" of this meeting, but that is primarily the result of two thins, 1) fear of "the enemy" 2) playing for internal audience (more likely).
Armenia needs the border to be opened, there is no secret there, and Turkey, if she wants to assume regional leadership, needs stable relationships with all her neighbours, that much is uttered by both Gul and Erdogan many times.
But most importantly, there is a simple fact that the Armenian and Turkish leadership has come to the realization that they both need each other, in some degree, and a simple visit and talking is th emost harmless level of "relationship".
There need not be deep and "proper thought out plan" on either side, I think the simpler, the less planned "maneuvers" can yield more results. As we are witnessing.