There is a one-storey house with 5 windows and a door right on the Armenian-Turkish border. Window frames have recently been given a fresh coat of white paint typical of provincial Soviet train stations. This little house is called Akhuryan Station of South-Caucasian Railroad.

Will it be knocked down and replaced by a big complex with a beautiful hall where thousands of passengers would be inquiring about their platform and coach number in case the Armenian-Turkish border would indeed open? No one has answers to this question yet.

The house windows overlook the rails hungry for wheels with worn-out old Soviet coaches; and today it seems as if this railroad doesn’t lead to Kars but to Washington where on March 4 the House Appropriations Committee of the US Congress will discuss the Resolution on the Armenian Genocide.

Efforts of Turkish diplomats are aimed at preventing the US Congress from approving the resolution. As a rule, it is in March that the outline of America's 'answer' to the 'April question' of the Armenian-Turkish history is sketched.

Nonetheless, the upcoming discussion differs from all earlier ones due to several new and principally important factors.

First of all, it is taking place on the background of highly strained relations between Turkey and Israel and in that respect Turks can't hope for a 100 percent (as was the case before) support on the part of the powerful Jewish lobby in the United States .

Secondly, the President of the United States – long before he even became a candidate for presidency – made statements on the need to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Finally, and most importantly, the discussion of the resolution comes after the Armenian-Turkish protocols signed last October 10 in Zurich.

It is obvious that the Turkish diplomacy will use the last factor as countermeasure to the first two factors.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated that “the normalization process of Armenian-Turkish relations was launched in Switzerland and is on-going... however, if missteps are made on March 4 or April 24 the process will be suspended. I hope that the congressmen will take that nuance into account when making a decision”.

Two Turkish diplomatic missions have left for Washington to prevent possible approval of the resolution.

Besides that, the Turkish parliament has sent a letter to the US Congress's Appropriations Committee on Foreign Affairs in which Turkish parliamentarians are trying to convince their American colleagues that Turkish-Armenian relations will suffer if the resolution gets approved.

So Turkey is playing two trump cards: the first is that “by their imprudent behavior American politicians are risking to harm the rapprochement process”, and the second (traditional one) – “it can cause irreparable harm to Turkish-Armenian relations”.

As for Armenia there is no unanimous opinion in terms of whether to open the Armenian-Turkish border. The authorities and representatives of business world support the prospect. They think that Armenia’s domestic industry can handle competition with Turkey and that Armenian manufacturers are ready to exit to a new –Turkish – market.

According to political scientist Stepan Safaryan (NA deputy from Heritage party), the sooner the US recognizes the Armenian Genocide, the better the developments connected with the Armenian-Turkish relations will be, because Turkey would have to review its policy towards Armenia.

“The adoption of the Resolution (on the Armenian Genocide) by the US Congress, which I consider to be unlikdly, will cause Turkey to be more sober related to regional issues, and Turkey will finally understand that evasion of the Armenian Genocide issue will not promote reconciliation and regulation of the relations,” Safaryan told ArmeniaNow.

According to the NA deputy, currently the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the US is more essential for Armenia than the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border.

“I believe that the adoption of the Resolution is more important for even the Armenian authorities, because it will be a guarantee for the Armenian side to enter into the relations’ regulation process more confidently, being sure that neither Turkey nor the international community would cast doubt on the issue of the Armenian Genocide,” Safaryan adds.

The Armenian co-chair of the Turkish-Armenian commission on economic cooperation Arsen Ghazaryan says that: “the opening of the border is of equal advantage both to Armenia and Turkey and the region on the whole. After the opening of the border Armenia will resume its role of a transit country and everybody will gain from that – from Middle East to Europe, from Iraq to Georgia”.

Armenia does not export anything to Turkey, and commodity circulation takes place in a one-sided manner by importing consumer goods from Turkey to Armenia through a third country, mainly Georgia.

At the same time, although there are no diplomatic relations with Turkey and the border is closed, Armenia has a higher commodity turnover with it than with Iran or Georgia, despite the open borders with these neighbors.

Speaking about concerns that after opening the border cheep products would fill the Armenian market and by that ousting domestic production, the authorities say that Turkish products filled the Armenian market in 1990s, however later, after developing domestic industry, Turkish products gave way to Armenian goods.

They point out that it was because compatible domestic products emerged in the market, decreasing the volume of import from Turkey. Hence, after opening the border, they say, the situation is unlikely to change.

The absolute majority of Armenians, although favoring coming out of isolation, think that in reality the Armenian-Turkish border cannot be measured in space but in time.

“That’s not a couple of hundred kilometers drawing a line dividing one part of historic Armenia from the other, rather those are several hundred consecutive centuries during which many monstrous projects were implemented against the Armenian populations, including the Genocide,” says political analyst Garegin Gabriyelyan. “It was during the Genocide that most of the current border was outlined and its length determined.”

Turkish politicians are convinced that despite the changes during the recent two-three years, Washington-Ankara confidential relations remain the most important mechanism of US influence in the region, and the White House is not ready to reconsider the priorities regardless of party affiliation or the president’s previous promises.

It’s worth recalling in this connection, that when on October 9, 2000 the US Congress passed a decree to schedule for October 17 the voting on Armenian Resolution 316 calling upon the president to qualify the early 20th century mass extermination of Armenians as genocide, the then president, Democrat Bill Clinton had an urgent meeting with the speaker the US Congress House of Representatives, a Republican Dennis Hastert and “asked” him not to approve the resolution.

US National Security Council Spokesman Philip Crowley reported then that: “President Clinton and speaker Hastert discussed the matters concerning the Armenian resolution in a tête-à-tête meeting. The president pointed out that passing the resolution might cause serious unwanted consequences”.

Today, Turkish sources cite information made public then by BBC radio: “The possibility that the resolution might be adopted raised such serious concerns in the White House that president Clinton personally interfered. He addressed a letter to the Congress; moreover, he personally called the speaker of the House Dennis Hastert”.

Washington was afraid that Turkey, outraged by the adoption of the resolution, might take measures fraught with serious damage to America’s interests in the region. One such measure considered by Turkey was to refuse extending the lease for the military base in Incirlik from where the US and British air force jets take off to patrol Iraq’s northern territories.

Beside the Armenian-Turkish and Turkish-Armenian trump cards there is one more mechanism that is a serious obstacle on the way to possible adoption of the resolution.

The thing is that there is a point in the signed protocols on establishment of bilateral relations according to which the sides oblige to “create a bilateral intergovernmental commission for an impartial study of historic documents and archives in order to clarify the problems at hand and formulate propositions”.

Hence, the sides have come to one standpoint on the need for “impartial study of historic documents and archives”, and by that – the majority of Armenian political analysts share this opinion – localized the issues of the genocide and its recognition bringing it down to a narrow frame of the Armenian-Turkish dialogue.

Accordingly, countries inclined towards recognition of the Genocide will now follow a wait-and-see policy, right up to the moment when the issue is solved on a bilateral level.

It should be noted for the sake of comparison, that during former president Robert Kocharyan’s tenure (1998-2008) when all international efforts failed to establish Armenian-Turkish dialogue, and the Armenian leader from all high tribunes voiced the need for recognition of the crime against humanity committed by Turkey, a number of countries recognized the Armenian Genocide on a state level and ratified it: Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Cyprus, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Canada, Vatican, Australia and some other countries. France recognized and condemned on a presidential level the Genocide of Armenians.

At present, such “triumphant procession” should not be expected. After signing the protocols, many states have lost their interest in that issue.

This circumstance has come quite handy for Turkish diplomacy. And not only…

Armen Ayvazyan, director of Ararat Strategic Research Center says that: “the protocols have freed president Barack Obama of his moral burden to, as promised, recognize the Armenian genocide”.

Should the Armenian resolution indeed get approved, the Armenian-Turkish relations will be frozen for a very long time. However, the issue now is that in case the resolution does not get approved, these relations will not progress anyway.

Turkish authorities have repeatedly stated and keep stressing it that the prospects of establishing bilateral diplomatic relations and unblocking the border depend on the Armenian authorities’ position on the Karabakh issue.

In other words, Turkey has the following position: the little shabby house on the border will be knocked down only after withdrawing the Armenian troops from the internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan and recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity by Armenia within its Soviet borders recognized by UN in 1992 as state borders.

“The discussion (over the Resolution on the Armenian Genocide) at the US Congress will be the recurrent means of pressure upon Turkey to ratify the protocols. And nowadays the only intrigue is the unprecedented poor Turkish-Israeli relations; and as far as the Israeli lobbing was always against the adoption of the resolution, it is rather interesting what would happen now, under the current bad (Turkish-Israeli) relations,” says political analyst Yervand Bozoyan.

At the same time, Bozoyan believes that the influence of the Armenian, Jewish lobbyist groups is exaggerated, saying that “the interests of the US are, anyway, superior, and they (Americans) will never take a step that could essentially damage them.”

The argument voiced by Turkey (saying that the adoption of the resolution would hinder the process of the Armenian-Turkish relations regulation), according to Bozoyan, are “logical and influential.”

“Currently the super powers comparing the adoption of the Resolution on Genocide with the ongoing rapprochement, believe that the argument of Turkey is rather forcible, and many will simply not wish to interfere with the process,” the analyst says.