Presidential election: It is not Erdoğan's time yet

Deniz Baykal appeared on NTV with something of a threat earlier this afternoon. If the prime minister emerges as a presidential candidate, he said, the CHP will not take part in the vote. His exact words were: "in such a scenario, we will not be standing by as decoration."

The reality of next year's presidential election is that Mr Baykal's party is going to be decoration regardless of who is on the ballot paper. The governing AK party has an overwhelming presence in parliament, just a handful of seats short of the two-thirds majority needed to elect a president in the first two rounds. Even that isn't much of a problem: the rules dictate that if there is no clear winner after the second round, the winning threshold is dropped to a simple majority for the next ballot. That's 276 votes, which the AK party can supply comfortably.

With the mathematics beyond dispute, it really isn't a question of whether the AK party will win, but rather with whom. Prime ministers have certainly become presidents before - look no further than Turgut Özal and Süleyman Demirel - which suggests Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the most obvious candidate. But it does not necessarily mean he is the right candidate.

Turgut Özal was a remarkable prime minister. He was not a remarkable president. Visibly frustrated by his former party's defeat in the 1991 general election, he never bridged the gap with the victors, the party of longtime rival Süleyman Demirel. Before his untimely death, Özal had a firm vision of what direction Turkey should take forward. It was a vision suited to a prime minister, a man accountable to the general public, but not to a president who serves only as a final check on parliament.

For all his faults - and there are many - Mr Erdoğan too is a competent politician. He has done more to encourage reform, challenge state taboos and raise living standards than any other politician since Özal. But that does not mean he has the indeterminate qualities needed in a head of state. The president is a unifying figure, a statesmanlike individual who embodies all aspects of the country and represents it at home and abroad. Mr Erdoğan is no statesman. Like Özal twenty years before him, he does not have the experience. He has been in national politics for barely half a decade - again, not unlike Özal.

But brushing aside vague ideals of statesmanship, the Turkish constitution offers a far more concrete obstacle in front of Mr Erdoğan's candidacy: impartiality. "Upon election," the constitution reads, "the president must sever all ties with his party." It is one thing to tear up a membership card - like they did with Özal's Anavatan party membership - but actually severing those ties altogether is another matter. At this difficult time in Turkish politics, it will be immensely difficult for Mr Erdoğan to prove he is a Turkish president and not an AK president. And while the electorate might be happy to give him a chance, the state establishment will not.

The Turkish presidency has been ailing for decades. It is the office of a distant figure, disconnected from the public, a man who lives in a high security base in south Ankara and vetoes laws. These were problems less noticeable when the position was occupied by a prominent individual - say, a prime minister or an army chief. But when the post was taken by Ahmet Necdet Sezer, an obscure judge, the presidency was exposed as nothing short of elitist.

The way to change that is to make the president more endearing to the public, by letting the public elect him directly. Despite calls from the opposition, it is unlikely there will be a direct presidential election this time around. Far more likely is for a president to be directly elected in 2014, after Mr Sezer's successor.

In the meantime, someone must be found to become that successor. The candidate must have experience (which rules out Mr Erdoğan for now), he must be known by the public (which, it is hoped, will deter the election of another judge), and he must be liked by the public (which is Mr Baykal's come-uppance). But in these times of political polarisation, the candidate must also not be deeply infused in party politics.

It is time for both parties to nominate - and endorse - Hikmet Çetin to become Turkey's 11th president. Mr Çetin has formerly been foreign minister, deputy prime minister, CHP leader and parliament speaker. He left domestic politics to serve as NATO's highest civilian representative in Afghanistan for two terms, and returned in August of this year. He has never been endearingly close to Mr Erdoğan, but there has not been much love lost with Mr Baykal either.

Hikmet Çetin is a capable, experienced statesman, and the most suitable candidate for Turkey's next president. By nominating Mr Çetin now, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would not only intercept Mr Baykal's cheap threats of withdrawal, but also establish himself as the man who had the opportunity to rise to the top, and decided to wait. He is not an old man, and 2014 is only seven years away.

How skipping Antalya could help solve the Cyprus problem

Tony Blair was in Ankara yesterday to offer Britain's support at a time when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's case for Turkey's EU membership has never looked quite as bleak. The visit came as the EU confirmed eight chapters of Turkey's entry negotiations would be suspended in response to Turkey's staunch refusal to open up to Cyprus. There is little hope of those chapters - or indeed of other unrelated topics, such as Education and culture - being opened anytime soon.

Mr Erdoğan needed a boost in the face of growing EU antagonism at home, and that boost came in the form of a direct acknowledgement from Mr Blair that Britain was looking into - and had therefore not automatically rejected - a Cyprus Turkish Airlines request to fly directly to the UK. Mr Blair said he personally supported the idea, and that they were looking into the legalities of starting direct flights.

As it stands, the only planes flying out of Ercan Airport go to Turkey. There are flights to places such as Britain and Germany, but these legally have to call at a Turkish airport - usually Antalya - before proceeding on to their final destination. Save a few token flights to Azerbaijan, there have been no other flights out of North Cyprus since the trade embargo was first placed in the 1970s.

Tourism is Northern Cyprus's largest source of income - even now, when the only route of entry is via Turkey, it overtakes agriculture. This was the principal reason behind Turkey's insistence on opening more than just a single seaport in the north: it is, after all, far easier to bring the tourists in by air.

If Britain's civil aviation authorities approve the Turkish Cypriot request, it would start the first direct flights between North Cyprus and Europe in decades. It would pre-empt an EU review of Northern Cyprus planned for the end of January, which looks likely to be vetoed by the (Greek) Cypriot government. It would give a much-needed injection of cash at a time when even EU aid is set to be derailed by a southern veto.

But perhaps most importantly of all, it would demonstrate to the EU that the Cypriot issue is not one that can be solved merely by enforcing existing treaties a month before a summit deadline. It would show that a dedicated push - perhaps the efforts of an entire six-month presidency - is needed to solve the Cyprus issue once and for all.

The next rotating president is Germany, whose foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has promised to personally involve himself in the Cyprus issue. He says he is hopeful the problem can solved by June. His optimism provides little reassurance, but what else can be done but hope?

Reforming Republican People

Deniz Baykal is an excellent director. He must be. He is a man who can craft, and weld, and manoeuvre. Surely that makes him excellent politician. How else can you explain the 13-year leadership of Turkey's most sacred political party by a man so incredibly disliked?

Deniz Baykal was only the fourth leader of the 69-year-old Republican People's Party (CHP) when he first took the helm in 1992. He resigned twice, first in the wake of an impending merger with the Social Democrat People's Party (SHP) and later after an embarrassing showing in the 1999 elections. But in each case he returned to defeat his successor. It amounts to a cumulative thirteen years as leader.

In the summer of 2002, when hordes of MPs resigned Bülent Ecevit's governing party and triggered yet another crisis in the Turkish left, Mr Baykal saw the opportunity to rebuild his position. He persuaded countless former Ecevitites to switch to the CHP, knocking the wind out of Ismail Cem's attempts to establish a new political force on the left wing. He also scored a big coup in Kemal Derviş, the man credited with resuscitating Turkey after the latest economic crisis, by snatching him away from Mr Cem's clutches.

His tactics worked. When the election came, the country was far too distracted by the prospect of a single party government - and an Islamist one, at that - to notice the CHP's showing. Ataturk's party was back with 178 seats. It was their best result in thirty years.

The result was a personal victory for Mr Baykal, propelling him into a position more influential than when he was deputy prime minister a decade ago. He had become the de facto leader of the secular Turkish left in the face of a resurgent religious threat. He is no longer that leader.

Mr Baykal's failure is partly because he is not an endearing man. He is staggeringly unpopular, especially among secularist Turks who say they vote for him because he is the only viable challenger to the AKP. He is a man driven by his ideology, unable to empathise with the average voter. He is, in fact, a member of that "old guard" of Turkish politics - among the likes of Bülent Ecevit, Mesut Yılmaz and Tansu Çiller - that was purged in the 2002 election. The reason Mr Baykal survived is because he is not as well-known.

But there is more to it than personality. If Mr Baykal's pre-election resurgence was shrewd and calculated, his post-election performance was rash and tactless. He failed to recognise that his party's return to parliament was not from an electorate endorsing his policies, but from part of an electorate worried about an Islamic future. The CHP was not the party of choice, it was the only choice.

Deniz Baykal has done little since to consolidate his party's position. He has not pushed hard enough to unify the Turkish centre-left. He has not made a serious attempt to endear himself to the voting public. He has even lost his badge as leader of Turkey's Kemalists. That title is now shared by Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the president who has vetoed more parliamentary laws than any other in Turkish history, and General Yaşar Büyükanıt, the chief of the army.

The CHP has paid for Mr Baykal's mistakes already. His party performed badly in the 2004 local elections, losing council seats nationwide and barely holding onto traditional strongholds like Ankara's Çankaya district. Mr Baykal, however, refused to accept a defeat, prompting a bemused Radikal headline: "CHP wins victory - apparently".

The downward trend looks set to continue, too. Opinion polls ahead of next November's general election all suggest the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) will return to parliament. But the resurgent nationalist vote, it seems, will not be at the expense of the governing AKP, but of the CHP.

Deniz Baykal has to go, and he has to go soon. But who to come in his place?

There have been mutterings of President Sezer joining active politics. There is, though, a far more sensible replacement in Ismail Cem, who still commands a certain degree of respect in Turkey. He joined the CHP two years ago after his new party experiment failed. When it comes to dismissing Mr Baykal, however, the only solution might be to field him as the compromise successor - to Mr Sezer.

Image © Copyright Circassian Canada, 2006.

Erdoğan to meet Pope (at baggage reclaim?)

Thousands of people were in Istanbul's Cağlayan neighbourhood today to protest Pope Benedict XVI, who is due in Turkey in Tuesday. There was widespread booing, quite a lot of flag-waving, and many women turned up wearing headscarves and bandanas, clutching bemused babies. It was all organised by the Felicity Party (SP), the successor to the Welfare and Virtue parties that were closed down over the last ten years.

In his frail state, former party leader and prime minister Necmettin Erbakan made an appearance via videolink to say he had no doubt the Pope was coming to resurrect Byzantium in Turkey. Other party officials egged on chants along the lines of "Don't turn the Hagia Sophia back into a church", as current SP leader Recai Kutan spoke out against the European Union.

Security was high at the demonstration, as anyone not carrying SP credentials had their banners confiscated. It did not go unnoticed either that separate protest areas had been allocated for men and women. It was a rather large gathering, with participants from all over the country. It caught the international headlines too - the BBC went with "Turkish protests at Pope's visit" while CNN said 20,000 people attended.

All in all though, it was a rather minor protest from what has become a fringe party. Benedict XVI's visit - a first papal visit to Turkey in many a year - is set to go ahead from Tuesday, and the good news is that he might just meet the sitting prime minister after all. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had earlier made his excuses for not meeting the Pope, pointing to the schedule clash with a NATO summit in Latvia.

It was slated by domestic commentators as a convenient excuse from a man with a history in political Islam. In its leading article tomorrow, The Times calls it a "snub". But in an eleventh hour rescue, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül announced the Pope's timetable had shifted forward, and the two are likely to meet at Ankara airport after all. It sends out a positive signal - far from avoiding the Pope, Mr Erdoğan's government has worked to make a meeting, albeit a short one, possible.

"As a government we see the visit as an opportunity," said Mr Gül. "There are many misconceptions about Turkey, but Turkey is a country where tolerance occurs. We hope the visit helps dispel some of the misunderstandings between Muslims and Christians."

The tension that so clearly exists over the upcoming visit has not been helped by Pope Benedict himself, and the lack of forethought over his words for which he becoming notorious. Aside from his controversial Bavarian lecture in September, Benedict XVI managed recently to reiterate his views against Turkey's EU membership, and several Turkish newspapers have him saying at this Sunday's mass that his visit to Istanbul is "another crusade". Ho-hum.

There's a lot hanging on this next week, and the The Times's leading article is absolutely right: to achieve (it all) against a background of rising Muslim suspicion will demand all Benedict's tact, adroitness and humility.

So they chanted slogans. Who cares?

The following was written on an easyJet flight from Istanbul on Sunday 12^th November 2006, the day after Bülent Ecevit's funeral in Ankara. My apologies about the recent break - normal service has been resumed!

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was visibly annoyed after his party's general conference yesterday, having spent the morning with a hundred thousand people who really don't like him. He was at the funeral of his immediate predecessor, Bülent Ecevit, a man so staunchly secular that when a woman MP dared to enter parliament wearing a headscarf in 1999, television pictures were able to pick up his trademark moustache quivering violently. "Nobody interferes in a woman's choice of dress in her private life," he had thundered from the podium, "but this is no private residence. This is the state's most supreme institution. Please inform this woman of her limits."

Mr Erdoğan, conversely, is everything Mr Ecevit was not, and the funeral crowd knew it. "Turkey is secular, it will remain secular" they chanted all day long, occasionally swapping "Turkey" for "The President" to make a dig at Mr Erdoğan's supposed hopes for the country's top job. It certainly wasn't what he wanted to do with his Saturday morning - his party conference was just a few hours later, after all - but as sitting prime minister it was his duty to go.

When he did finally get to the sports hall hosting his party conference, he found no flag-waving crowds cheering his second unopposed election as leader of the AK party; instead, his audience was subdued and miserable. The entertainers failed to impress, and Mr Erdoğan even had to ask the crowd to cheer up and shout a little more. You could be forgiven for thinking it was all part of the funeral.

Clearly, having conference and funeral on the same day was not a good idea. But Mr Erdoğan wasn't about to shift an already much-delayed party conference, and his efforts to persuade Mrs Ecevit to choose an earlier date proved unsuccessful.

He did respond to the crowd's slogans ("Are you saying that there is someone behaving outside [the bounds of secularism]?") and he did try to set his party's agenda ("We will base our politics on the social centre ground, without repeating history's mistake of swinging to the fringes") but it was really the secularism movement in town that stole the front pages.

Given the massive funeral attendance, it is easy to slate the prime minister's influence, saying the walls are closing in and the AKP is set to lose power in next year's general election. A hundred thousand is a huge figure, yes, but it is tiny next to Turkey's population of 70 million. Not all of the country agrees with yesterday's funeralgoers. It was indeed a bad day for the prime minister, to quote Radikal commentator Murat Yetkin, but it certainly wasn't his end.

As Mr Yetkin wrote just a few days previously, the AKP remains the only one of Turkey's four political ideologies to have broken from its past and embraced the new. Mr Erdoğan and his followers separated from the near-extremist politics of Necmettin Erbakan to create a party that campaigned not on a religious platform but one that understood the electorate. Of the other three ideologies, the centre-left remains bullishly split between Deniz Baykal's CHP, Murat Karayalçın's SHP and Mr Ecevit's former party, the DSP; the centre-right is composed of a True Path Party (DYP) and a Motherland Party (Anavatan) that have spent the last twenty years insisting they are not essentially the same thing; while the extreme right has shown itself to be very good at preaching nationalism, but not so effective in government.

Only the AKP has demonstrated it can put voters before ideology, and the voters have in return made it the largest governing party Turkey has seen since the 1950s. They are likely to do so again next year, if the opinion polls are to be believed.

Yesterday's funeral was not the beginning of the end for Mr Erdoğan; it was the cry of a political class that is out of touch, but has yet to realise it.

As the progress report looms...

In a matter of hours, the European Commission will release its latest progress report on Turkey. It seems likely the Commission will criticise Turkey in its strongest language yet, particularly on the matters of Cyprus, Article 301 and human rights. The report will stop short, says NTVMSNBC, of recommending a halt or suspension of membership talks.

The contentious matter of Cypriot access to Turkish ports will be left to a summit of EU leaders to be held in the middle of December. This gives Finland, as term president of the Union, the opportunity to push forward its plans for a solution in Cyprus. They are the likeliest leaders yet to coin a solution - they have, after all, done more to solve the Cyprus issue than anyone since Kofi Annan and his ill-fated plan of 2004.

On the matter of Article 301, it is now too late to change any laws in time for the EU report. But Prime Minister Erdoğan has publicly said a change is necessary, and has called for concrete suggestions on how best to do it.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül appeared to be comfortable as he spoke Can Dündar on NTV last night. He said talk of a crisis was simply sensationalism, and pointed to the important steps Turkey had taken thus far.

One interesting point was his insistence that the government was well aware of its responsibilities to the EU. This is a point so easy to overlook: after all, Turkey can hardly be accused of neglecting the EU issue. It is not a Serbia, nor indeed a Croatia. Turkey and Europe are well aware of what each side wants of the other; where they disagree is over whose terms come first.

The focus of Turkey-EU relations now should not be the upcoming progress report, but what will happen after it. There is a month of serious negotiating ahead, and much more than Turkey's EU membership depends on it.

A dove takes flight

Bülent Ecevit, poet, journalist, and five times prime minister, died last night after a six-month coma. He was 81. Succeeded by his wife, Rahşan Ecevit, and his now greatly diminished Democratic Left Party, he leaves behind perhaps the greatest career in Turkish politics since Atatürk.

His tragedy is that he will be remembered not for his achievements, of which there were many, but for the disasters that occurred during his time in power. In 1974, during his first tensure as prime minster, it was he who ordered the invasion of Cyprus by Turkish troops in response to a Greek-backed coup. He resigned shortly afterwards in an attempt to take his rocketing domestic popularity to an election, but was surprisingly not granted a request to dissolve parliament. Instead, his staunch rival Süleyman Demirel became prime minister. Condemned to oppositon, he was held responsible for the poverty and isolation that struck Turkey as a result of international sanctions.

He returned to office several times after 1977, but was not in office at the time of the 1980 military coup. He was imprisoned and banned from politics all the same, his Republican Left Party (CHP) closed down along with all others. But he continued his political life nonetheless through his wife, launching a new party, the Democratic Left Party (DSP). When his suspension expired, he took the helm himself, refusing calls to merge with a reinvigorated CHP. In the medium term, it turned out to be a shrewd move: while the CHP did quickly return to power in coalition led by Demirel in the early 1990s, it was the DSP who won power in 1999, with Ecevit back in charge after twenty years.

His last term in power was not a happy one. Disaster first struck in August 1999 with a devastating earthquake in northwestern Turkey. Over 20,000 people died in what was considered the country's richest, most properous region. And in 2001, an infamous row with the Turkish president triggered one of the worst economic crises in the country's history. The economy shrank by 10 percent, tens of thousands of jobs were lost, countless more savings rendered worthless. It was a crisis from which he would never recover; his refusal to resign over health grounds in 2002 was simply the last straw.

By dismissing any chance of left-wing unity and campaigning instead as a leader not tainted by corruption, Ecevit did secure his return to power. But his failure to tackle corruption while in power, and his refusal to accept a left coalition even in the wake of an electoral threat from the mildly Islamic Justice and Development Party was to be his downfall. The CHP was returned to parliament as the main opposition; the DSP became little but a fringe party.

But Bülent Ecevit is unjustly associated with shame alone, whereas his achievements were many and will largely go unrecognised. It was he who managed to defy what was in effect the theocracy of Ismet Inönü, toppling Atatürk's ailing right-hand man in a leadership contest in 1973. Despite the disasters that shook his terms in power, he managed to maintain an honest personal image, with his trademark black cap and refusal to be driven around in anything more glamourous than a Renault Safrane. Even President Sezer, the other half of that blistering row in 2001, today praised his politeness. "He was an example," Mr Sezer said, "with his democratic position and intellectual indentity".

Turkey woke up today to newspapers carrying the same picture, that of Ecevit holding a white dove at an election rally. The dove, a universal symbol of purity, was the symbol of his party and the symbol associated with his character. "A dove takes flight" was Hürriyet's headline, Vatan went with the splash "Goodbye, Karaoğlan", using Ecevit's popular nickname.

The head of Radikal's Ankara desk, Murat Yetkin, was on NTV a little while ago, calling him "one of the four or five greatest figures in Turkish history, alongside Atatürk and İnönü and Demirel". There are few who could disagree with that. The legacy may still be in contention, but there's no denying a legend left this world last night.

Bülent Ecevit, former Turkish prime minister. Born May 28 1925, died November 5th 2006.

Image © Copyright Hürriyet archives, 2006.

Election 2007: Early beginnings

"Hustings" is a British term used to describe those political activities and speeches that are made before an election - the ones meant to bring in the votes. It isn't a term used very often outside of the UK, but its definition applies very well to what's happening in Turkey at the moment.

It all began with something Mehmet Ağar said last week. During a visit to the southeast, the True Path Party (DYP) leader said that PKK members should be doing politics on the plains rather than roaming the mountains with guns. When asked by Sabah whether this was a call for an amnesty, Mr Ağar said "if necessary, yes".

Mr Ağar's suggestion is interesting and worthy of a national debate at the very least. It did not go unnoticed that his words were cautiously supported by the government. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül pointed out that Mr Ağar was a former interior minister and had experience in such affairs, and said "his words should be carefully read".

But those words provoked a fierce backlash from nationalist circles. The new army chief Yaşar Büyükanıt violently condemned his words, while the news website 8sütun screamed: "Ağar wants to forgive the terrorists!" The response from the political arena was quite the same. Anavatan leader Erkan Mumcu said it was "an attempt to form a government at the next election that will act as a patron over the Kurdish state in Iraq". Even Recai Kutan, leader of the religious Felicity Party (SP), said Mr Ağar had suggested negotiations with terrorists. Mr Kutan was also careful to dismiss rumours of a post-election coalition with the DYP.

Mehmet Ağar's words came a matter of days after the date for the next general election was finally set: November 4th, 2007. That may well be a year away, but opposition parties know perfectly well that they have some serious catching up to do if they want to re-enter parliament, let alone government. Four years on from its landslide victory, the governing AKP is slightly weakened, but still commands by far the largest bulk of support nationwide.

A number of parties have used the recent resurgence in Turkish nationalism to boost their popularity, trampling on ground traditionaly occupied by the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). Being nationalist is not a particularly difficult thing to do. "The EU is out to destroy us," you can say, with dashes of "Cyprus is slipping away from under our very noses" and "the government wants to legalise the insulting of Turkishness". It's easy stuff really. The thinking is you can't go wrong with belting a few nationalist sentiments here and there, and all the opposition parties have therefore tried it. It is why Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition CHP, finally got around yesterday to criticising Mehmet Ağar. After all, doesn't the man want to forgive terrorists?

But publicly worshiping Turkishness will only get you so far in the eyes of the electorate, and Mehmet Ağar's recent actions suggest he is aware of that. By going to the predominantly Kurdish southeast and talking openly about negotiating with PKK members, he has joined the select few who have publicly advocated more politics and less military in the region. If he sticks to his position without submitting to the initial fierce backlash, it will win him support among Kurds desperate for a lasting solution, and perhaps some forward-thinking Turks too.

With 382 days to go, the hustings have already begun.

Armenia: French bills and Nobel laureates

There is some strange, twisted irony in the fact that France's parliament passed a bill outlawing genocide denial on the same day that the Nobel prize in literature went to Orhan Pamuk, a man who himself went on trial for saying genocide did happen.

The French bill was passed by an overwhelming majority - 106 votes to 19 - after weeks of often fierce debate on the issue. It provides for a €45,000 fine and one-year prison term for anyone who denies a genocide of the Armenians. This puts it on a par with sanctions for denying the Jewish Holocaust, which is already law in France.

Note that the Armenian legislation has not passed into law yet. It needs approval first from the French senate, then from the president before that can happen. But in a country where elections are but a year away and Turkey's EU membership is one of the top campaign issues, it is not clear if either senate or president will go so far as to put freedom of speech before national interest.

If there is no veto, it will be France that suffers more than anyone, particularly as Turkish leaders have already threatened to block French companies from business ventures in Turkey. And the trial of anyone charged under the new legislation would attract wide media coverage, not unlike the trial of a British historian tried and sentenced in Austria last year for holocaust denial.

But for all its injustice, the potential law could have positive effects too. There is greater talk today than ever before about a meeting of Turkish and Armenian historians to unearth the truth of what happened in eastern Anatolia more than ninety years ago. Just this week, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said (in reference to the French bill), "You cannot clean dirt with dirt; you can only clean dirt with clean water." The focus of that statement should be not the fact that he likens the French bill to dirt, but that he acknowledges there is dirt that needs to be cleaned up in the first place. For the Turkish political elite, this is a great step in the right direction. The next step must be abolishing Article 301 of the penal code.

Just under twenty minutes ago, Orhan Pamuk became a Nobel laureate for literature. The Swedish academy awarding the prize said that "in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city (he) has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures." It is a remarkable achievement for a man who champions the cause of freedom of speech.

Congratulations to Orhan Pamuk. He has done himself proud, he has done Turkey proud. Now Turkey should recognise what he stands for.

Armenia: New cards at play

Turkey has made a historic concession to Armenia, the neighbour it does not recognise, during secret talks in Vienna, according to CNN Turk reporter Barçın Yinanç. She says in her blog entry that the Turks have stopped demanding a resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute before diplomatic relations are established. The two countries are now on track to setting up a high commission to look into relations between them. "It is an important step that could be considered historic," says Ms Yinanç. But is it really that?

Turkey was the first country to recognise Armenia when it declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Things faltered after that; diplomatic relations never really got off the ground, and while Turkish embassies sprung up in nearby former Soviet republics like Azerbaijan and Georgia, relations with Armenia remained unofficial. When war broke out in 1994 between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, Turkey sealed shut its 268km border with Armenia. Azerbaijan did the same.

Neither border has opened since, and it has been Armenia that suffered most. The country is hopelessly poor. Its only realistic avenue for trade with the west is through a small border with Georgia, hundreds of kilometres north of the capital.

In the 12 years since the border was sealed, the Armenians missed out on the opportunity to be a corridor for one of the largest oil pipelines outside of Russia and the Middle East. The pipeline in question goes from Azerbaijan to southern Turkey via Georgia; taking it through Armenia would have been a far more sensible route, and cheaper too. Think of the millions of dollars that could have resuscitated their economy. All because a closed gate.

With the situation as gridlocked as it is, it is interesting that the Turks seemingly blinked first yesterday. They have always had the upper ground: sure, the closed frontier does not help the regional economy in eastern Turkey, but the effect on the country's national economy is small, and the enthusiasm to resolve the dispute has consequently been smaller still. So why the concession?

It might be a case of preemptive action. See, for all their weaknesses, the Armenians have one powerful bargaining chip - that of a potential genocide in 1915. The facts are disputed; the Armenians say it was part of a centuries-long conspiracy to eliminate their kind in Ottoman Turkey, the Turks deny it with arguments that range from "it didn't happen" to "we didn't do it". Armenia's influential diaspora has exploited it abroad to considerable success over the years, be it with Canada's recognition of the events as genocide or French motions making it an offence to deny it ever happened. But it wasn't really until talk popped up of including genocide recognition in Turkey's EU accession talks that the diaspora began to pose a serious diplomatic threat.

Perhaps Turkish authorities are beginning to see that the diaspora can make things even more uncomfortable for them. Perhaps they see that Armenia can no longer be ingored. Perhaps they are aware that a stricter definition of their position over the massacre - or genocide, or non-entity, or whatever - might be needed very soon.

Yesterday's Turkish concession is actually tiny. With it, they have simply agreed to meet and talk about the possibility of meeting again, perhaps that time with someone keeping the minutes. That means little on its own. But it might be the starting point for a greater concession, an admission of the vaguest sort that something horrible happened 91 years ago. Now that would be historic.