Armenian nationalists may derail peace with Turkey

By Matt Robinson and Margarita Antidze

YEREVAN (Reuters) - The historic prospect of peace with longtime foe Turkey has roused angry opposition among powerful Armenian nationalists, which could yet undermine President Serzh Sarksyan and torpedo the whole process.

Under accords signed last month, Christian Armenia and Muslim Turkey agreed to establish diplomatic relations and reopen their frontier, overcoming a century of hostility stemming from the World War One mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

Peace would bring big economic benefits to poor, landlocked Armenia, while Turkey would burnish its credentials as a potential EU entry state and a reliable energy transit country by solving a border dispute.

Villagers in the border region, an unforgiving landscape of rock and barren land, enthuse about new trade routes beyond the guard towers manned by soldiers of Armenian ally Russia.

Workers are preparing to lay new rail tracks.

But the killings of last century -- considered genocide by some European nations and Western historians though Turkey disputes this -- remain a defining element of Armenian identity.

The deal must be ratified by both parliaments, but is stirring resentment, particularly among diaspora Armenians, of which many are descendents of those who fled modern-day Turkey.

The huge diaspora is the source of crucial donations and remittances for the country of 3.2 million people, whose already struggling economy is forecast to contract 15 percent in 2009.

Opponents say the accords undermine Armenia's pursuit for further 'genocide' recognition and effectively give up claims to parts of eastern Turkey as an Armenian homeland.

"This is an act of complicity where the Armenian state and presidency is taking part in the burial of the Armenian question and in the ceding of rights to memory, to homeland and ultimately the right of return to the ancestral patrimony," said Raffi Hovannisian of the opposition Heritage Party.

U.S.-born Hovannisian, grandson of four survivors of the killings, said: "This is one of those visceral, existential issues that go to the core of Armenian identity and rights."

Armenia says 1.5 million Armenians died in systematic massacres aimed at the extermination of its people. Turkey says there was no such campaign, the death figure is far lower and that many Muslims also died in partisan fighting.

Sarksyan was met by angry protests by Armenians in Europe, the Middle East and United States last month. He argues the accords renounce nothing and contain no preconditions.

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Under the deal, a commission will investigate the killings. Hovannissian said it would discuss the issue "ad infinitum."