Armenia and Azerbaijan Thank, Thank, Thank the French

Old Caucasus hands often say that Armenia and Azerbaijan have more in common than they might care to admit. Long united in hatred for each other, the two foes now have a fresh bond to share -- they've both got reason to be thankful to France, albeit for different reasons.

Yerevan first thanked French President Nicolas Sarkozy for backing French legislation that criminalized any denial of Ottoman Turkey's World-War-I-era slaughter of ethnic Armenians as genocide. Then, after the guardians of the French constitution ditched the law as unconstitutional, the Armenians thanked the French president for a promise to bring the law back in a revised form.    
 
The Armenian government did express regret over France discarding the law, but shied away from making any big, official statements with the horns blaring. “I don’t think it is correct to interfere with the process of decision-making of the French Constitutional Council,” Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian told Austria’s Der Standard newspaper. He and other officials in Yerevan put the development down to the alleged work of Turkish and Azerbaijani lobbyists.

Next up, Azerbaijan, which, as Turkey’s cousin and the official Armenia-foe-in-chief, had a supporting role in the genocide law drama, thanked all those French who prevented the law from going live. Extending gratitude to all of the bill's opponents, President Ilham Aliyev declared that the Constitutional Council’s decision was a defeat for “the Armenians of the world and a fiasco for the cunning work of the worldwide Armenian lobby.”

At the same time, Azerbaijan reinvigorated its push for international awareness of its own charges of genocide -- the 1992 slaughter of ethnic Azeris in Khojaly, in breakaway Nagorno Karabakh, by Armenian and Russian forces. Worldwide events commemorating the bloodshed were held just before the French constitutional court struck down the Armenia genocide bill.

The upshot? While many outside observers may have heaved a sigh of relief with the French Constitutional Court's decision, the region's genocide recognition wars aren't over yet. Maybe some day it'll be the international community's turn to thank Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey for confronting their pasts frankly and moving on, but don't hold your breath.