A Turkish Embrace at the Foot of Ararat
On May 28, 1992, on the left bank of the Araxes River– the river serving as the border between Turkey and Nakhijevan– Turkish Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel addressed thousands of Azerbaijanis exclaiming, “Dear Azerbaijani Turks, and dear Nakhijevani Turks! We are here to tell you that you are not alone! The bridge of hope across the river Arax of despair we open today is the first step in opening a road from the Aegean Sea to China!” American journalist Thomas Goltz witnessed the event: “The airlock opened, and there was Demirel, waving his trademark fedora and descending the stairs into Heydar’s embrace. A hundred still cameras clicked and video cameras whirred, recording the historic moment. Demirel and Aliyev, together at last! There were persistent rumors that Aliyev’s rise to power in the Azerbaijani and Soviet security apparatuses was predicated on the success of a KGB operation, code named ‘Blue Eyes,’ designed to destabilize several Demirel governments in the 1960s and early 1970s by inciting unrest among the Kurds. All one had to do was look at Heydar’s unblinking crocodile eyes to understand whence the operation had taken its name. And here they were, orchestrating a pan-Turkic party under the shadow of Mount Ararat.”
Ter-Petrosyan in Turkey
On June 14, 1992, within the framework of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, a meeting was held between Ter-Petrosyan and Demirel, which, according to Turkish media, took place upon the suggestion of Armenia’s president. “I do not want to talk to you as prime minister or president. Let’s leave diplomacy aside. We will not reach anywhere through war and fighting. You found the possibility to establish an independent Armenia after one thousand years, but don’t establish that state based on hostility and war. Azerbaijan and Turkey surround you. If you don’t become friends with those countries, you will face difficulties,” said Demirel.
Ter-Petrosyan replied, “I want to resolve the Karabakh issue peacefully.” Demirel continued, “If you want peace, leave Shusha and Lachin. For us Nakhijevanis of special importance.” Ter-Petrosyan replied that Armenia is aiming for peace and is willing to continue the discussion in Istanbul, within the framework of BSEC. “Dear Ter-Petrosyan, I am talking to you without diplomatic formulations. Those who become owners of lands by force cannot live in serenity. You are Turkey’s neighbour, thus you must live as a friend.”
Turkish Bread
In 1992, the only functioning transport link connecting Armenia with the outside world was the Abkhaz railway. It is true, the Armenian-Turkish border was not blockaded, but the two border crossings – Kars-Gyumri and Alican-Margara – were opened only periodically. Azerbaijan had closed the Baku-Nakhijevan railway earlier. The Julfa railway, which went to Iran, was also closed when connections were just being established with Iran by land.
Armenia had reached an agreement with the European Union to receive a loan to buy grain. Prime Minister Khosrov Harutyunyan learnt from the minister responsible that Armenian grain reserves would last for a couple of days only. “It was most unexpected for me. From that time on, our struggle for bread began,” he remembers. “I was very depressed seeing people lined up for bread when I went out for a stroll in the city in the evenings. It was very disheartening. When the Abkhaz railway was shut down, the situation worsened. We did not have cargo aeroplanes. Air transport was in an awful situation, more capricious than you can imagine. The goods would arrive and bargaining would begin, from the bottom upwards – ‘If you do not pay this much money, we will not allow you to land’. There was shooting in the streets of Yerevan in broad daylight.”
Ter-Petrosyan called and discussed with Demirel the possibility of importing wheat though Turkish territory. Demirel’s response was affirmative. Ter-Petrosyan instructed Harutyunyan to write a letter to his Turkish counterpart. Harutyunyan recalls the contents of the letter to Demirel – “You and I have the opportunity to prove to our nations that we can also co-operate; let us try not to lose this opportunity.” Demirel, in his reply to his Armenian counterpart, wrote, “My government agrees in principle to assist in the supplementation of the wheat reserves. We are ready to receive your delegation to discuss issues connected with the ways of transport of the wheat, the formulation of the quantity, and the timing. Our sincere desire is to see our neighbouring region as an island of peace, stability, prosperity, and co-operation. Turkey will continue its constructive activities in this field.”
On October 7, 1992, Minister of State Gagik Shahbazyan visited Ankara to discuss ways to bring the wheat from Turkey to Armenia. Years later Shahbazyan recalled, “In Ankara we were welcomed politely, but very coldly. The Turkish side agreed to resume the railway communication between Armenia and Turkey under the condition that the Turkish wagons had to immediately return after unloading in Akhurian.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union, railway communication between Kars and Gyumri had stopped. “In a matter of a few days a great deal of work was carried out in Armenia. The Akhuryan station was reconstructed, adapting it to receive wheat. Meanwhile the opposition continued to rage, even though they too ate that bread with appetite,” Shahbazyan said.
Turkey would allocate 100,000 tonnes of wheat to Armenia as a loan. A telephone conversation between the prime ministers of Armenia and Turkey took place. “Demirel asked how he could send the wheat. I told him that the Kars-Gyumri railway was functioning. It was a positive conversation. Turkey agreed to allocate grain to Armenia from its resources, against our future loan, on the condition of receiving grain from the European Union in the future,” Khosrov Harutyunyanrecalls.
Syria’s President Hafez Assad allocated six thousand tonnes of wheat, which also reached Armenia through Turkey’s territory. That meant bread for twelve days.
“From 1992 to 1993, the wheat entered though Turkey; we had no other route,” says Gerard Libaridian, who was the negotiator in relations with Turkey from 1992 to 1997. “However, they halted it.100,000 tonnes were supposed to arrive, but only 52,000 did. We had gone quite some way in improving Armenian-Turkish negotiations, but it stopped. Many Turkish diplomats, with whom we negotiated at that time, and analysts today say that we should have normalised relations back then.”
Ter-Petrosyan Participates in Özal’s Funeral
In April 1993, after President Turgut Özal’s funeral ceremony, Turkish Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel received the guests from Yerevan –Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Vahan Papazyan, and Gerard Libaridian. Papazyan and Libaridian recall that it was a very extensive and interesting meeting. “Demirel took a map out of a drawer and explained in Turkish: ‘This is Armenia, Armenian land. We have no complaints, it’s our neighbour. This is Karabakh. It’s not Armenian land, but Armenians live there. You have concerns, you took Karabakh, and we understand that as well. This is Lachin; it’s not your land. Armenians didn’t live there. You took it and said it was for security reasons, we understand that too. But what do you have to do with Kelbajar?’ That is how they linked the Karabakh problem to Armenian-Turkish relations,” Libaridian recalls.
Turkey Prepares to Invade Armenia
After Özal’s death, Demirel became Turkey’s president. On May 16, 1993, in the third phase of the elections in parliament, the political figure in Turkey with the most longevity, Demirel, was elected as the ninth president. In mid-June, he asked Tansu Çiller, the president of the True Path Party, to form a new government. For the first time in its history, Turkey had a female prime minister.
In the summer of 1993, when Nagorno Karabakh forces entered Aghdam, the National Security Council’s session was held with the participation of President Demirel.
Demirel noted that Turkey would not get stuck in a war to save Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani people should carry out counter-attacks against Armenia themselves. If Turkey took that step, Russia would support Armenia, which would be against Turkey’s interests, he further warned.
In the early morning of September 6, 1993, the Turkish side opened fire in the direction of Armenia. Major-General Alexander Babenko, commander of the Russian border defence forces in Armenia, declared that his staff was concerned about the presence of additional sub-divisions of the Turkish army, equipped with armoured vehicles and artillery, on the Armenian-Turkish border. He stated that these units were carrying out engineering works in the area. The press service of the border defence forces stated that the command was following the situation on the border and initiating measures, according to the 1921 Treaty of Kars, to prevent a conflict situation.
A meeting of Armenia’s Security Council was called. On September 6, during a telephone conversation, Ter-Petrosyan and Demirel discussed the build-up of Turkish forces on the Armenian-Turkish border. Prime Minister Çiller threatened again that Turkey “would not sit with its arms folded.”
On September 13, a Turkish military plane made surveillance flights along the length of the Armenian-Turkish border, in the Armavir region. Fire was twice opened in Armenia’s direction.
According to an agreement signed between Armenia and Russia on September 30, 1992, Russia ensured the security of Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Iran. Ter-Petrosyan, who was in Moscow on a short working visit, met with Russian President Boris Yeltsin on September 15. On the same day, Armenia’s president and a state minister, Vazgen Sargsyan, met with Grachov.
Papazyan finds it difficult to discuss the policies Turkey would initiate against Armenia and their aims: “Our side observed movements in the Turkish armed forces and an approach towards Armenia’s border. There was a real threat, which we took very seriously. Ter-Petrosyan had spoken to Yeltsin and told him that Armenia could see a real threat and wanted the Russian side to clearly express its stance. Besides that, there was also Özal’s unrestrained announcement about throwing one or two bombs on Yerevan. If it wasn’t for Shaposhnikov’s well-known declaration, I do not know what steps the Turks would have taken. But we took the Turkish threat seriously.”
On October 7, France de Harthing, the French ambassador to Armenia, visited the border regions. She took a special interest in the Armenian-Turkish border, the communication routes connecting Armenia with Turkey, and Turkish military manoeuvres directed towards Armenia’s borders.
Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos, the first Greek ambassador to Armenia, where he also represented the Presidency of the European Union, wrote in his memoirs that Turkey made preparations in 1993 “to execute incursions of a limited nature into Armenia, using the Kurdish issue as a pretext.”
On September 21, 1993, Russia’s president Yeltsin dissolved parliament. In response, Russian parliamentarians, headed by the speaker, Ruslan Khasbulatov, and Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi demanded Yeltsin’s resignation. Rutskoi announced that he was assuming the office of president. On October 3, a mob of parliament supporters stormed the police cordon around the White House (a government building, where the Russian parliament had barricaded itself) and seized also the Moscow municipality offices. Later, the crowd was greeted from the White House balcony by Rutskoi, who urged them to seize the national television center at Ostankino. On the morning of October 4, several elite divisions of the Russian military forces decided to support Yeltsin. Tanks rolled up to the White House and shelled the parliament, and the army was able to take over the building. Nearly two hundred people were killed and hundreds more were injured.
In Yerevan, Ter-Petrosyan spoke over the telephone with Yeltsin and declared his open support to him. He also convened the National Security Council, which adopted extraordinary security measures in Armenia. “As Ter-Petrosyan told me, the National Security Council placed the armed forces of Armenia on maximum readiness in order to defend Armenia against a possible attack from Turkey in the eventuality that the ten thousand Russian soldiers guarding the border between Armenia and Turkey were forced quickly to return to Russia,” wrote Chrysanthopoulos, Greek ambassador in Armenia at that time. “Ter-Petrosyan was convinced, based on information that he had recieved from several sources, that Turkey would try to take advantage of serious events within Russia in order to occupy Armenia, using as a pretext either the Kurdish question or the protection of the Nakhijevan enclave. He had intelligence reports that the Turkish National Security Council had recently examined the possibility of the Turkish army’s making incursions into Iraq and Armenia in order to eliminate PKK guerillas.”
“On the same issue, the French ambassador told me on 11 October that, according to French intelligence sources, there had been an agreement between Khasbulatov and Ankara that, if he prevailed, he would allow Turkey to execute incursions of a limited nature into Armenia, using the Kurdish issue as a pretext. The Turkish incursion into Armenia, according to French intelligence sources, would take place immediately after Khasbulatov would have withdrawn the Russian troops from Armenia. This information was later confirmed to me by my American colleague,” Chrysanthopoulos wrote in his memoirs.
Major-General Edward Simonyants, Chief of National Security in Armenia during 1993-1994, confirms Chrysanthopoulos’s assertions. “There were several real threats of invasion from different directions, including the scenario mentioned by the former Ambassador of Greece,” Simonyants said. “We received information about the possible invasion of Turkish forces not only through diplomatic sources. According to the decision of the Security Council, corresponding measures were initiated. The invasion never took place. There were true threats to the extent that the Turkish army units were repositioned on the Armenian border, field headquarters were established, and the troops were reinforced with personnel, military equipment, and armaments.”
It is surprising that Vladimir Stupishin, Russia’s ambassador to Yerevan, has not mentioned the Turkish danger in his memoirs, in which he presents Armenia from 1992 to 1994 in detail.
