Armenia: Turkey Football News

Financial Times
Turkey and Armenia bury the hatchet over a game of football
After almost a century of hostility, Turkey and Armenia celebrate
their new era of co-operation – over a football match.
By Jonathan Liew
Published: 9:41AM BST 14 Oct 2009

Map showing the disputed areas of Nagorno-Karabakh and the occupied

territories Turkey wants Armenia to leave Armenian foreign minister Edouard

Nalbandian and Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu sign protocols

before foreign dignitaries, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Armenian president Serzh Sarkisian is scheduled to attend a World Cup qualifying
game between the two countries in the Turkish city of Bursa, days after they signed

an agreement establishing diplomatic relations for the first time.

The trip, which has been described as an act of “football diplomacy”, follows a visit

by Abdullah Gul, the Turkish president, to Armenia last year.

The pact was signed on Saturday after six weeks of fraught talks and is seen as a

significant step towards reconciliation between the two neighbours, who have never

had formal diplomatic relations.

It will open the border between the two countries for the first time since 1993, when

it was closed by Turkey in protest at Armenia’s backing for ethnic Armenian rebels

fighting for control of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave of neighbouring Azerbaijan.
However, it fails to resolve Armenia and Turkey’s most long-standing bone of

contention – the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians during World War One.

Armenia insists the killing be recognised as a genocide, a term that Turkey has

refused to accept. The agreement merely pledges to set up a joint commission of

historians that will investigate the massacres.

There has been strong domestic opposition to the agreement, which still requires

ratification by both country’s parliaments.

On Friday around 10,000 protesters gathered in the Armenian capital Yerevan to

oppose its signing, while the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation has

vowed to block the accord, threatening “regime change if necessary”.
In addition, news of the deal has alarmed neighbouring Azerbaijan, who issued a

strongly worded statement saying that the normalisation of ties between Turkey

and Armenia would “contradict its national interests”.

As the region’s pre-eminent oil and gas power, Azerbaijan fears that the pact could

undermine its negotiating position with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
It is a close ally of Turkey and shares close cultural and linguistic ties with the fellow

Muslim state.

As the Soviet Union began to break up in the late 1980s, a bloody war between

Azerbaijan and Armenia saw some 30,000 people killed. Ethnic Armenians drove

out Azeri troops and took control of seven districts adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has insisted that parliamentary

ratification is dependent on Armenia withdrawing from these territories.

“These are age-old problems that go back to the creation of the Turkish nation,”

said Cengiz Aktar, an international relations expert at Bahcesehir University in

Istanbul. “There are no quick fixes, but historically it’s a landmark.”

Omer Taspinar, Turkey project director at the Brookings Institution in Washington,

said: “The signing may be the easy part at this point.
“We may end up in a kind of awkward situation where there are diplomatic relations,

but the border is still closed.”

Better ties between Turkey and Armenia have been a key goal of president Barack

Obama, who is keen to facilitate the growing role of the Caucasus region as a corridor

for energy supplies.

Financial Times

Ankara urges best behaviour in great game of diplomacy
By Delphine Strauss in Bursa
Published: October 14 2009 03:00 | Last updated: October 14 2009 03:00

Football fans in the old Ottoman capital of Bursa are under orders to display the best

of "Turkish hospitality" to signal a willingness to end a century of animosity, as Armenia's

president arrives to watch tonight's match between the two national sides.

Ticket sales are tightly controlled; brandishing provocative symbols is banned. One group

of notoriously unruly local fans even got a visit from the president to put them on best

behaviour for a game where, for many, diplomacy matters far more than the score.

Serzh Sargsyan's visit, the first by an Armenian president in a decade, echoes the

ice-breaking gesture of his counterpart, Abdullah Gul, welcomed at a game in Yerevan

last year. It also marks a diplomatic breakthrough after Saturday's signature of accords

to restore bilateral ties, re-open the border and let historians discuss the massacres and

deportations that took place in the last years of the Ottoman empire.

Mutual animosity is rooted in the 1915 killings by Ottoman Turks of up to 1.5m Armenians.

Turkey also closed its border with Armenia in 1994 to support its ally Azerbaijan in a war

with Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, said: "The Armenian president and the

Armenian national team will see what Turkish hospitality is. I believe our country and the

citizens of Bursa will not bow their heads to politics and to the aims of those who want to

use the game to achieve something else."

Giving the Armenians a good welcome for tonight's World Cup qualifier is not just about

national pride. Both countries must now ratify their agreement, against fierce public

opposition, and Turkey, keen to play a bigger role in regional diplomacy, will be keen to

show the outside world that Turks are not the ones obstructing peace.

If ratified, the agreement will lessen Armenia's economic isolation, boost Turkey's

standing in the region, and reduce the risk of a crisis in US-Turkish relations if legislators

formally recognise the 1915 massacres as genocide.

But Mr Erdogan has signalled Turkey is unlikely to open its border until Armenia agrees

to withdraw troops from at least some of the Azeri territory they occupy. Mr Sargsyan
must persuade Armenian diaspora groups that Yerevan is not abandoning its quest to

have the killings recognised as genocide.

People in Bursa say they are ready to support their leaders with a display of friendship,

but few seem confident that the match will pass without incident.

Local fans, known as the Teksas group for their wild behaviour, have been told not to

bring placards or even pens they might use to scribble and display insults.

The authorities are refusing to sell tickets to associations from Bursa's large Azeri

community. But nationalist groups are urging people online to defy a ban and come

waving the Azeri flag in support of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Mehmet Guzelsoz, leader of the Teksas association, said plans to hoist welcome

banners written in Armenian were on hold in case such gestures invited protest.

"This is the first international match we've had in Bursa in 48 years - it's important for us,"

he said.

Volkan Sahin, a local dolmus driver, said: "I don't think there will be big incidents,

but this is Teksas, so anything can happen at any moment. I'm going to watch the match

on TV at home."

While the "football diplomacy" has won praise from world leaders, Mr Guzelsoz said:

"We didn't want it to be so stressful. Football should be football - don't mix it with politics."

Additional reporting by Inci Ozturk

ARMENIANS HAPPY WITH WARM TURKISH WELCOME
Hurriyet Daily News
Monday, October 12, 2009

CONTENT: Armenian Football Federation chief Ruben Hayrapetyan is
happy with the way the squad was welcomed in Bursa.

The Armenian national football team arrived in Bursa on Monday for
its World Cup qualifying round match against Turkey.

Turkey and Armenia will play their last fixture for Group 5 of the
2010 World Cup Qualifying tournament on Wednesday at Bursa's Ataturk
Stadium.

Both teams have lost their hopes of qualifying for the World Cup,
but the game is still an important one, as it comes just after the
two countries signed protocols that may be the first step to solving
their troubles that date back a century.

Speaking after arriving in the northwestern city of Bursa, Armenian
Football Federation Chairman Ruben Hayrapetyan voiced his satisfaction
with the way the squad was welcomed.

"We were welcomed very well in Bursa," said Hayrapetyan. "Thanks to
the Turkish authorities for organizing it so well.

"I hope everything will be fine in the game, and both teams make a
good ending [to the campaign]."

In light of both countries' political history, there were worries
of trouble triggered by ultra-nationalist groups in Bursa, but the
government took a string of precautions to avoid them.

"The tickets to the game will not be sold," daily Hurriyet reported
on Monday, "and will be distributed to hundreds of policemen and
soldiers who will enter the stadium as civilians."

The Bursa Police Department also warned Turkish citizens of Azerbaijani
origin who were reportedly planning to go to the game to protest
the normalization of relations between the Turkish and Armenian
governments.

The daily said the supporters were warned to avoid signs, banners or
flags related to Azerbaijan.

ARMENIA AND TURKEY: MORE POLITICS THAN FOOTBALL

Tert.am
15:33 13.10.09

Though Armenian and Turkish football officials had reached a
preliminary agreement that no fans of the host team would be present
at the Armenia-Turkey matches, during the return match and amidst
Turkish fans' shouts, it will be possible to distinguish the voices
of the Armenian team's supporters.

Present at the match will be a number of journalists, politicians,
and sociologists who have arrived to Bursa from Armenia to follow the
sporting dispute turned "Football Diplomacy." Bursa, Turkey's fourth
largest city and the capital of the region with the same name, with
a population of 2 million, welcomed Tert.am's correspondents with
strong bursts of winds; if we believe meteorologists, the winds will
continue on the day of the match too.

In the city, however, one doesn't really feel the full swing of the
pre-football match. But local football fans are convinced that if
the authorities are not extremely attentive, the stadium that has a
capacity of 20,000 will be filled easily.

A 40-year-old shop vendor named Akif doesn't conceal his
dissatisfaction at all that Turkish and Armenian presidents will be
present at the match. "I have not even missed a single match of the
local Bursaspor team, but today, when the country's national team is
in our city, I don't want to see how political figures will hinder
the football players' showing their game," said Akif, sharing his
opinion with Tert.am correspondents.

Despite no longer in the running for the 2010 World Cup, the Turkish
team gathers a large number of fans from Bursa, who, unlike Istanbul's
population, don't have many opportunites to watch a match by this
much-loved team. Here, even with great enthusiasm, they welcome the
team's coach Fatih Terim, for whom this will be the last match in
his post.

Gyunel, a 30-year-old manager, says he regards the political
component of the match with understanding: "I have never understood
the radical fans. If football countries become friends, what's so bad
about that? And that in the case when our team no longer qualifies
for the World Championship."
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