Editor’s note: Tony Halpin is a founder of ArmeniaNow. He is currently Moscow bureau chief for the Times newspaper of London.

The political battle in the United States over recognition of the Armenian genocide boils down to a simple calculation: is the cost in spoilt relations with Turkey outweighed by respect for the memory of 1.5 million victims?

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev is fond of making war rhetoric concerning settling the long-running Armenia-Azeri conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.

He made one such statement in his interview to the pan-European TV news channel EuroNews prior to his Armenian counterpart’s visit to Great Britain.

For more than two centuries Russia and Turkey waged wars for political influence in the Middle East. Today, they maintain their aspirations for power over as much territory as possible in this intricate region of the world, but strategies have changed.

The Armenian president’s unexpected response to Turkey’s attempts at linking the ratification of the Armenia-Turkey protocols with the Karabakh issue settlement could not have emerged overnight, and is an ‘escape hatch’ in case if the normalization process reaches a deadlock. It is also obvious that the president’s statement is Yerevan’s official message to the international community as a response to Ankara’s uncompromising stand.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the United States has come at a very important time, when official Ankara for the first time in recent decades is making efforts to become the center of not only the Turkic, but also the Islamic world and is building close ties with Arab states.

The signing of the Armenian-Turkish protocols on establishing bilateral diplomatic relations took place under principally new circumstances in the Middle East.

The situation is unusual because for the first time in the past hundred years Turkey is trying to present itself as a leading unit – and not so much in the Turkic, but rather Islamic world.

Despite the now common term ‘football diplomacy’, the Armenian-Turkish relations more resemble a volleyball pitch.

The existing border that separates the two countries is like a volleyball net with the teams from each side of it trying to attack. The initiative switches from one team to another; however, on the whole the Turks seem more aggressive.

There is much speculation nowadays on “football diplomacy” policy initiated by the Armenian president in 2008 which, in fact, has contributed to the warming in relations between Armenia and Turkey.

It is noteworthy that the football diplomacy factor had, actually existed long before, although in an absolutely different way. In short, the factor of sports has been used as a diplomatic weapon in Armenia-Turkey relations.

The Armenian-Georgian border which periodically provokes disputes between the two countries requires a new demarcation, since the old one drawn during the Soviet times has no legal force.

Vahe Sargsyan, an expert from the ‘Mitq’ Analytical Center says, international law allows Armenia to draw a new Armenian-Georgian border.