Message from Margara One year after “earthquake diplomacy” opened the Armenian-Turkish border, the newly reconstructed checkpoint remains closed – Meduza

Story by Sona Hovsepyan about The Beet. Edited by Eilish Hart.

This story first appeared in The Beet, a weekly email newsletter from Meduza covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Sign up here to get the next issue delivered directly to your inbox.

In the Armenian village of Margara, Kima Karapetyan tuned her radio to the news. She never misses an update, and listens intently for information about the reopening of the long-closed border with neighboring Turkey.

Margara, inhabited by about 1,300 people, is located on the bank of the Araks River, which demarcates the border with Turkey, which Armenia inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The walls of Karapetyan's small house are cracked, and the nearby cultural center is deserted and deserted. But the Margara checkpoint has been recently renovated, although it has only been used once in the past 30 years.

Turkey unilaterally closed its land and air borders with Armenia in 1993 in a show of support for Azerbaijan amid the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.

More than three decades later, Yerevan and Ankara briefly opened the border after 7.8- and 7.6-magnitude earthquakes devastated southeastern Turkey and northern Syria last February, killing more than 50,000 people. Armenia provided humanitarian aid, sent search and rescue workers to help extract survivors from under the rubble, and two convoys of Armenian aid trucks heading to the areas affected by the earthquake crossed into Turkey via the Margara Bridge.

It so happened that the Margara-Alikan crossing served exactly the same purpose in 1988 after an earthquake destroyed the town of Spitak in northern Armenia. Humanitarian relief passed across the border again in 1992, when Turkey allowed 52,000 tons of wheat to reach besieged Armenia via the Kars-Gyumri railway.

“We must be very careful”

Karapetyan, who teaches Armenian history at the local school, was clearly concerned about recent “rumours” regarding the border with Turkey. She had heard that Yerevan and Ankara were planning to open the borders to third-country citizens and diplomats in the near future, and felt that Margara residents should be “cautious.”

“Let there be diplomatic relations and the borders be opened, but we must be very careful throughout Armenia, especially in Margara,” Karapetyan warned.

Normalizing relations with Turkey has been on the agenda of every Armenian leader since independence, but disagreements over Nagorno-Karabakh and recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide have continually hampered progress.

Turkey officially recognized Armenia after the latter gained independence from the Soviet Union, but the two neighbors never had formal diplomatic relations. This is partly due to the massacres committed by the Ottoman Empire and the forced displacement of some 1.5 million Armenians during World War I and partly due to Ankara's strident denial of atrocities amounting to genocide (a fact acknowledged by a growing list of countries).

Turkey's support for Azerbaijan in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh will only further strain relations with Armenia. But after the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, Ankara and Yerevan appointed special envoys for normalization: Turkish diplomat Serdar Kılıç and his counterpart Ruben Roupenyan, deputy speaker of the Parliament of Armenia. The two envoys agreed to partially reopen the land border in 2022, but the two countries have not yet followed through. Although last year's “earthquake diplomacy” provided what seemed like a great achievement, the Margara-Alecan crossing has remained closed since then.

Meanwhile, Armenian authorities have allocated 871 million drams ($2.15 million) to renovate the Margara checkpoint. Armenian officials announced the completion of the renovation work on January 12, but the checkpoint remains difficult to access, and barbed wire still marks the border itself. Russian border forces, which have helped guard Armenia's borders since the breakup of the Soviet Union, remain on duty at the Margara checkpoint.

“It's not easy to live in chains like this,” Karapetyan said. “Since the checkpoint was built in such a short time, I think they will open the border,” she added.

Preconditions

When Armenia and Turkey announced plans to normalize relations in 2021, the Armenian opposition criticized the idea. According to Cegham Manoukian, a representative of the opposition bloc affiliated with the Armenian Alliance, the opposition was not against opening the Armenian-Turkish border per se, but the timing was not appropriate.

After defeat in the 2020 war, Armenia was forced to hand over many territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, which it seized in the 1990s. As a result, Turkey's justification for closing their common border disappeared, creating an opportunity for negotiations.

However, the opposition urged the ruling Civil Contract Party not to enter into talks in such an “unfavorable situation” and warned that “Turkey will continue talks with Armenia with preconditions beneficial to Azerbaijan,” Manukyan explained.

Manukyan said that at the time, the opposition was particularly concerned that Turkey would use the normalization talks to pressure Armenia to sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan. Three years later, he still believes this is holding back progress on the border issue. He added: “Türkiye will not take any action until shortly.” [piece of] “The paper, which I will never refer to as the ‘peace treaty’, was signed and the differences between Armenia and Azerbaijan were resolved,” the MP told The Beat.

Turkologist Nili Minassian agrees. Despite the Turkish side's announcement that… [normalization] “The process will be without preconditions, and it is clear that they have put forward preconditions,” Minassian told The Beet. She continued: “It is natural that they are linked to the Karabakh issue. Now, when the Turkish-Azerbaijani side believes that the problem has been solved, they raise the issue of a peace treaty.

Azerbaijan has also kept its border with Armenia closed since the 1990s, effectively isolating the landlocked country from the east and south. Against the backdrop of more than three decades of intermittent, bloody conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, negotiations on border demarcation and a lasting peace deal have waxed and waned. Then last fall, Azerbaijan regained control of the disputed territory in a lightning attack, forcing its separatist government to surrender and displacing more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians — nearly the entire population of the region.

Slowly, then all at once The final chapter in the tragedy of the collapse of Nagorno-KarabakhSlowly, then all at once The final chapter in the tragedy of the collapse of Nagorno-Karabakh “Eternal stalemate”

The fall of Nagorno-Karabakh immediately raised fears that a more daring Baku would launch an offensive into Armenia, specifically to secure a land route through the southern Syunik province to its enclave of Nakhchivan.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev issued a renewed call for the establishment of the “Zangezur Corridor” last January, saying that “Armenia will remain in eternal impasse” until this is done.

Around the same time, Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Oraloglu claimed that the Turkish section of the Zangezur Corridor would be completed by 2028 to ensure direct connectivity between Turkey and “the countries of the Turkic world.” Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan referred to the transfer route as a prerequisite for repairing relations with Yerevan. “If Armenia fulfills its promises, especially the opening of the Zangezur Corridor, Turkey is ready to develop relations step by step,” he said last fall.

“Whenever the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations fail to achieve results, Turkey effectively halts the entire negotiation process; Manoukian indicated that there are no longer any meetings between Roupenyan and Kilic. (The last meeting between the special envoys was in July 2022.)

Speaking at a press conference in late January, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan stressed that the normalization process was still moving forward, specifically pointing to joint efforts to restore the Ani Bridge, a historic structure over the Akhuryan River that will straddle the Armenian-Turkish border. . He added: “The Turkish side presented its vision recently [for the bridge]; “We will respond and move forward accordingly,” Mirzoyan said.

“The Armenian side is ready to open those borders as soon as possible; “It is ready in terms of policy, infrastructure, roads, checkpoints, etc.,” the foreign minister added. “The only missing element to open and operate the border is the decision of the Turkish side to start opening.”

The Armenian Foreign Ministry's press office echoed Mirzoyan's statements in response to questions from The Beat, saying that meetings between Armenian and Turkish officials last year provided a “positive base” for the normalization of relations. (It is worth noting that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended Erdogan’s inauguration in 2023.)

However, Minasyan believes that the border issue is more important for Yerevan than for Ankara. “It is not even among Turkey's foreign policy priorities because Turkey has much more serious problems,” she told The Beet.

“We left everything” Nagorno-Karabakh refugees uprooted and unemployed start from scratch in Armenia “We left everything” Nagorno-Karabakh refugees uprooted and unemployed start from scratch in Armenia “God forbid they agree”

Returning to Margara, Anahit Sagatilyan believes that opening the border with Turkey is only a matter of time. “The checkpoint is ready; The villagers worked construction all summer. “Our government is ready to open the checkpoint when the Turks agree,” the 44-year-old seller said. “But God forbid they agree.”

Saghatelian said she is mainly concerned with security issues, given Turkey's strong support for Azerbaijan. But for many Margara residents, the economic implications of opening the border with Turkey are top of mind.

Most residents of Marghera and its surrounding areas depend on agriculture and animal husbandry for their livelihood. The breadwinners of other families went to work in the capital, Yerevan, or in Russia. In Margara and the nearby village of Vardanashen, some residents see the imminent opening of the border as a step forward that will enable them to access foreign markets and the benefits of direct trade; Others worry that cheaper, better-quality Turkish goods will flood the Armenian market.

The Armenian government has not published any official data on the expected economic impact of opening the borders, but officials, including Pashinyan, say it will increase the volume of trade between Armenia and Turkey and have an overall “positive impact.” “It is possible that some local products will lose competitiveness, but opportunities will arise [other] The Prime Minister said in a press conference in 2022: “The sectors are the result of the opening of roads and railway lines.”

The German economic team, which advises the Armenian government, expects a “strong potential” to expand Armenia's trade with Turkey. According to a 2022 study, opening the borders would increase bilateral trade from less than one percent in 2021 to more than 10 percent of Armenia's total trade.

But some locals remain skeptical. “They say trade can be good, but it is better to have less and live in peace,” Sagatilyan said.

“They will come [in] Cheap goods from the Turkish side, and [local] “Villagers will not be able to sell their products at high prices,” Samvel Khachatryan from the neighboring city of Vardanashin expressed concern. “If they open the borders, it will be beneficial for them: the Turks will come here, work and sell their products – but what should we do?”

“It's better not to open it [the border]Khachatryan concluded his speech.

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Story by Sona Hovsepyan about The Beet

Edited by Eilish Hart

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