Armenia and Turkey are set to normalize their ties after a century of hostility stemming from the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, the BBC's Jonathan Head makes analyses of the deal from Turkey, October 10.

“Turkey, a fast-growing regional power running the world's 17th largest economy, would appear, on the surface, to need a deal far less than Armenia, a small, land-locked country still mired in post-Soviet poverty. Yet the current Turkish government has pushed just as hard to get it.

The governing AKP of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is focused on maintaining rapid economic growth and rising living standards than it is on old nationalist taboos. To that end it has followed a foreign policy it calls ‘Zero Problems With Neighbours’. Mending ties with Armenia is one of the conditions laid down for EU membership,” Jonathan Head says.
The article reads Turkey was the first to recognize Armenia’s independence when Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, however, there “were two serious obstacles that Turkey argued had to be overcome before diplomatic relations could be established.”

First — Turkey wanted to set aside “any link to the Armenian campaign to have the mass killing of ethnic Armenians by Turkish troops in 1915 categorized as Genocide.”
The article says in this Turkey “seems to have been successful” as “the Protocol it is signing agrees that the ‘historical dimension’ will be studied by a bilateral commission, to which international experts will contribute.”

Second — the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh

When, in 1993, ethnic Armenian forces took control of the territory, the Turkish government closed the border with Armenia. Then official Ankara promised Baku it will not open Armenian border till the Karabakh issue is resolved. However, Turkey was made to put the condition aside and consider opening the border and the Krabakh issue as separate processes.
It is expected that the Protocol will pass in Turkish parliament and “so long as discussion of the 1915 killings is kept low-key, most Turkish voters will probably support” Erdogan’s decision. “He could, however, be held to his promise to Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh,” Head underlines.

“The protocol envisages full relations being established within two months of the signing ceremony in Zurich. All the signs are that this will happen,” the expert concludes.