The Middle East Channel

How Turkey and Armenia blew their chance at peace

Not many borders are closed in our globalized world, but the frontier between Armenia and Turkey is still a dead zone where the railroad stops. The closed border is a strange anomaly in the new Europe that stems from two old tragedies: the still unresolved conflict of the early 1990s between Armenia and Turkey’s ally ...

By , a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe.
MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images
MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images
MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images

Not many borders are closed in our globalized world, but the frontier between Armenia and Turkey is still a dead zone where the railroad stops. The closed border is a strange anomaly in the new Europe that stems from two old tragedies: the still unresolved conflict of the early 1990s between Armenia and Turkey's ally Azerbaijan, and the catastrophe of 1915 when the entire Armenian population of eastern Anatolia was deported or killed in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.

Not many borders are closed in our globalized world, but the frontier between Armenia and Turkey is still a dead zone where the railroad stops. The closed border is a strange anomaly in the new Europe that stems from two old tragedies: the still unresolved conflict of the early 1990s between Armenia and Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan, and the catastrophe of 1915 when the entire Armenian population of eastern Anatolia was deported or killed in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.

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Thomas de Waal is a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe.

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