Football, the secret weapon to solve one of the most complex diplomatic conflicts on the planet

BarcelonaIn September 2008, then Turkish President Abdullah Gül accepted the invitation of Armenian President Serj Sargsian to witness live at the Hrazdan Stadium in Yerevan a qualifying match for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Gül thus became the first leader of Turkey to visit Armenia, two states that until then had no diplomatic relationship. In fact, neither had an embassy open in the capital of the neighboring country. Now the two teams meet again this Saturday (6 p.m.) in qualifying matches for the European Cup, right at a time of maximum tension due to the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Football helps to create bridges where politics does not always reach. In fact, the relations between these two states have only progressed when there have been great misfortunes or football matches. The spokesman of the Turkish Parliament, in fact, has already admitted: “We are ready to resume football diplomacy.”

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during the first Karabakh war in a show of solidarity with its ally Azerbaijan. Since then, ties between Turkey and Armenia have remained strained. The two countries only came close to finding common ground in 2008 after representatives from each nation met in Zurich in the well-known football diplomacy, as it coincided with the qualifying matches for the 2010 World Cup. Gül traveled to Yerevan to watch the first of the two matches and a year later, the then president of Armenia, Sargsian, traveled to Bursa for watch the second leg. A protocol was signed between the two governments in 2009 that suggested a solution to a century-old conflict was possible, but negotiations ultimately broke down after Turkey withdrew due to growing pressure from Azerbaijan, its longtime ally and enemy. of the Armenians Now comes the turn of the second chapter of football diplomacy.

Two states facing each other

Armenia, a state born in 1918 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, demanded from its first day that Turkey recognize its responsibility in the genocide of more than a million Armenians. On the night of April 23 to 24, 1915, hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, businessmen and leaders were arrested by order of the Union and Progress party regime – the so-called young turks – which triggered the first modern genocide, as it was planned and organized. The Turks have never admitted to having committed any genocide and when their authorities have spoken about the issue, at most they have sent their condolences to the descendants of the victims, but equating the pain of the Armenians to that of the Turks who died in the First World War. The Turkish government has gone so far as to imprison and fine citizens who used the word genocide to define those facts. Armenians who survived the genocide had to flee what is now Turkey, so it became a large diaspora, but thanks to the Soviets, a small part of the territory historically inhabited by Armenians was left out of the reach of tucs: the current Armenian state.

If genocide complicates relations, a second thorny issue has emerged in recent decades: the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Azerbaijan, a Muslim country with a language similar to Turkish, is to the east of Armenia. And during the 1990s Armenians and Azeris waged a war for control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region within Azerbaijan but with an Armenian majority. After decades of Armenian control, the Azeris regained much of the territory in 2020, thanks in part to Turkish weapons. The few lands that remain in Armenian hands have been isolated by Azerbaijan today.

But after this war that meant an Armenian defeat, the Turkish government opened the door to normalizing relations. Also, a misfortune helped create complicity. A few weeks ago, the border between Armenia and Turkey was opened, albeit only for a few hours, for the first time in thirty years. It was to deliver humanitarian aid from Armenians after the earthquake that hit the southeastern region of Turkey. The bridge between the two states had thus been closed for 30 years, with the military guarding it. It had not opened since 1988, when the Turks sent humanitarian aid to Armenia after an earthquake that killed more than 25,000 people. Then Armenia was not a state, it was a Soviet republic. This year’s earthquake allowed the two states to create a line of dialogue. The Armenian Foreign Minister, Ararat Mirzoyan, visited the Turkish capital, Ankara, at the end of February, where he was received by his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. On February 7, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke by phone.

In recent months, the first talks between the two sides have led to an agreement to open the borders to third-country nationals and holders of diplomatic passports, as well as an agreement to jointly restore the historic Ani Bridge, also known as like the Silk Road bridge on the border between Turkey and Armenia. The two sides will hold talks using the two games, and thus turn football into a tool to resolve impasses, as happened previously with the table tennis diplomacy between the United States and China, the cricket diplomacy between India and Pakistan or that of baseball between Cubans and Americans.