Roles of non-governmental organizations in Turkey during the normalization process of the relations between Turkey and Armenia (Between the years of 1990 to 2015)

Civil society and non-governmental organizations are notions that include various definitions and these notions are addressed in a wide perspective. The essential reason for such variations is the difference of the relations between the states and the civil societies in the greater part. The organizations in question bring various problems forward on an international scale and further provide support to present the impact of these problems both on their own societies and on other states. In this context, it has been seen that the non-governmental organizations have substantial roles in relations between the states. The goal in this study is to examine the roles and impact of the non-governmental organizations that are operating in Turkey during the normalization process of the relations between Turkey and Armenia. It has been seen that a series of operations and activities had been started to find solutions to the current problems by the non-governmental organizations from the beginning of the 2000's regarding the subject of the normalizations process of the relations between Turkey and Armenia. In the year 2007, official actions were executed mutually between Turkey and Armenia and the process of normalization had been started with the title of "Football Diplomacy". As of the year 2009, protocols have been signed between the two states, however, these interactions were suspended due to the internal political developments that have been happened in the year 2010 and the relations were completely ceased because the protocols were not approved by the parliaments of both of the states. Nonetheless, the operations and activities that have been carried out by the non-governmental organizations had an impact on relations between Turkey and Armenia for finding solutions to the problems and for the process of the normalization, even if the such impact could be applicable to a certain extent. For this reason, the impacts of the non-governmental organizations in question on the process of normalization and the operations and activities that were held by such organizations shall be examined in this study.