AUG. 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – It may have been a formality but it was a symbolically significant one. On Aug. 22 2011, Turkey’s new parliament nullified 898 draft laws the previous parliament had failed to ratify. Among these were two on improving relations with Armenia.

Both these draft laws had languished in Turkey’s parliament since Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul shook hands in Zurich in Oct. 2009 and pledged that after years of animosity the neighbours would finally make up.

Officially scrapped now, the draft laws have little chance in the short term of making their way back on to the Turkish Parliament’s agenda. In Armenia, the laws hadn’t even made it that far. So much for the Armenia-Turkey rapprochement, then.

And there had been such high hopes. But, though the countries’ leaders had shaken hands, spoken in public about the need for improved relations and watched football matches together, in reality rapprochement drifted off after only a few months.

The issues are so entrenched. At its heart is an argument over whether the Turkish Ottoman Empire at the end of the World War I committed genocide against Armenians. The Turks say thousands died on both sides of the fighting. The Armenians say Turks killed Armenians systematically.

Turkey is also a natural ally of Azerbaijan which is still officially at war with Armenia over the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Always complex, the Armenia-Turkey rapprochement is now also officially off.

ENDS