Turkey and Armenia seek peace

ISTANBUL — Enter the “Hall of Armenian Issue with Documents” at the military museum in Istanbul, and you get a very different picture of what many historians view as the first genocide of the 20th century.

There, photographs show bodies of Ottoman Turks allegedly slaughtered and mutilated — the term “martyred” appears in the captions — by Armenian gangs. The message: Turks were victims of fighting between the two neighbors, not the vast numbers of Armenians who were massacred or deported from Ottoman territory during World War I.

Seeking to end a century of acrimony over their bloody past, Turkey and Armenia plan to sign a deal this weekend approving diplomatic ties, but nationalists on both sides will seek to derail its implementation.

That was clear Friday, when about 10,000 protesters rallied in Armenia’s capital to oppose the planned signing. The marching demonstrators carried placards with slogans such as “No concessions to Turks!” and “No bargaining on genocide!”

“Even if the documents are signed tomorrow, that will mark the beginning of our struggle against their ratification in parliament and their implementation,” said protest organizer Kiro Manoian of the opposition Dashnak-Tsutyun party.

According to Omer Taspinar, Turkey project director at the Brookings Institution in Washington, “The signing may be the easier part at this point.”

Some vague wording in the agreement merely sets the stage for further talks, and could be prone to interpretation or dispute even if the two parliaments ratify the agreement as expected.

Better ties between Turkey, a regional heavyweight, and poor, landlocked Armenia are a key goal of President Barack Obama. They could help reduce tensions in the troubled Caucasus region and facilitate its growing role as a corridor for energy supplies bound for the West.

The contentious issue of whether the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians during the final days of the Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide is only hinted at in the agreement, which calls for diplomatic ties for the first time and the opening of the sealed border within two months.

The foreign ministers of both countries are expected to sign the deal in Switzerland, which has hosted six weeks of talks between the foes.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to attend. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will participate in the ceremony in Zurich on Saturday, the Interfax new agency said.

A tour of Armenian communities by Armenian President Serge Sarkisian sparked protests in Lebanon and France, with demonstrators in Paris shouting “Traitor!” and decrying plans to establish ties with Turkey. On Thursday, dozens of angry Armenians also staged protests in central Yerevan, the Armenian capital, burning papers meant to symbolize the agreement.

The agreement calls for a panel to discuss “the historical dimension” — a reference to the genocide issue — that will include “an impartial scientific examination of the historical records and archives to define existing problems and formulate recommendations.”

That clause is viewed as a concession to Turkey because Armenia has said that genocide was confirmed by international historians, and further discussion could lead to deadlock. Turkey denies genocide, contending the toll is inflated and those killed were victims of civil war.

The Istanbul museum contains black-and-white photographs of piles of Turkish corpses and official Ottoman documents that describe Armenian atrocities: young girls whose lungs were hung on walls, men whose brains were “drained” with bayonets.

A glass case holds the blood-stained shirt of a former Ottoman official who was assassinated by an Armenian militant in Berlin in 1921. The Armenian room is a tiny part of a cavernous, dimly lit museum dedicated to the glories of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, renamed Istanbul, World War I battles against the Allies at Gallipoli, and later clashes with Greeks.

“Given Turkey’s ongoing denial of the Armenian genocide, it makes affirmation that much more important,” said Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America, part of the powerful Armenian diaspora.

Another source of dispute is Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan that is occupied by Armenian troops. Turks have close cultural and linguistic ties with Azerbaijan, which is pressing Turkey for help in recovering its land. Turkey shut its border with Armenia to protest the Armenian invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh in 1993.

Turkey wants Armenia to withdraw some troops from the enclave area to show goodwill and speed the opening of their joint border, but Armenia has yet to agree, Taspinar said.

“We may end up in a kind of awkward situation where there are diplomatic relations, but the border is still closed,” he said.

One gesture seen as vital to reconciliation is a plan by the Armenian president to attend next week’s World Cup football qualifier between Turkey and Armenia in Bursa, an old Ottoman capital. Sarkisian has said he would go to the Oct. 14 game if there is progress on opening the border.

A year ago, Turkish President Abdullah Gul visited Armenia for the first game. Turkey won 2-0 in a round of “football diplomacy” where politics overshadowed sport.

Associated Press Writer Avet Demourian contributed to this report from Yerevan, Armenia.