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  • PM's Genocide Comment Stirs Up A Storm

    PM'S GENOCIDE COMMENT STIRS UP A STORM
    By Brian Adeba

    Embassy Magazine, Canada
    Canada's Foreign Policy Newsweekly
    May 10th, 2006

    Even before Stephen Harper was elected prime minister, members of
    the Armenian community met him in Toronto last October to press their
    main issues of concern, top among which is the Armenian genocide. A
    message posted on the website of the Armenian Prelacy of Canada says
    Mr. Harper initiated the meeting.

    The discussion didn't turn heads until April 21, the annivesary of
    the death of 1.5 million Armenians. That's when Mr. Harper's described
    the situation as "genocide" ­ the first for a sitting Canadian prime
    minister. The statement has sparked a diplomatic furore with Turkey,
    which temporally recalled its ambassador to Canada in protest. Prior
    to Mr. Harper's public endorsement, a dedicated Armenian lobbying
    effort, working quietly behind the scenes to get a high-ranking
    member of Canada's government to formally recognize the genocide,
    had already been set in motion.

    "We discussed the genocide, the importance of bringing the executive
    branch to fully recognize the genocide and being consistent with
    the legislative branch," says Aris Babikian, Executive Director of
    the Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC), which last month
    formally opened an office in Ottawa. The ANCC now has chapters in 10
    Canadian cities to serve the estimated 80,000 strong Armenian Diaspora
    in Canada.

    At the Toronto meeting with Mr. Harper, Mr. Babikian says the future
    prime minister promised to "support any statement to recognise the
    genocide."

    "He said for him, this is not a political issue, but an issue of
    principle," Mr. Babikian says.

    On April 2004, Mr. Harper, then leader of the now defunct Canadian
    Alliance party, was among the 153 MPs who voted in favour of a Bloc
    Quebecois motion to recognize that Turkey committed genocide against
    Armenians in 1915. The motion passed with 153 votes against 68.

    Liberal backbenchers broke ranks with Prime Minister Paul Martin to
    vote for the motion. Despite the considerable number of Liberal MPs
    who supported the motion, Mr. Martin refrained from publicly endorsing
    the genocide. In fact, on the day of the vote, Hansard records show
    he was absent.

    On March 23, 2006, an Armenian delegation including a high-ranking
    religious leader from Lebanon met Mr. Harper at his office in Ottawa.

    Mr. Babikian says the discussions touched on bilateral issues,
    including the possibility of opening a Canadian embassy in Armenia,
    and also the genocide.

    "Once [Mr. Harper] became prime minister, we asked him to uphold
    his position [on the genocide]," says Mr. Babikian. In April at the
    opening of the offices of the ANCC, Conservative MP Jason Kenny, who
    is Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, attended the event.

    "He congratulated the community for finally taking this step [opening
    the office]," says Mr. Babikian, who adds that the ANCC has known Mr.

    Kenny since 2004, after the MP visited Rome during an occasion when an
    Armenian priest killed during the genocide was named a saint by the
    Pope. On May 1, during a debate on Darfur in the House of Commons,
    Mr. Kenny commended Mr. Harper for having the "courage" to recognize
    the "historical reality of the first genocide of the last century,
    the Armenian genocide."

    But as the Armenian Diaspora's lobbying effort seems to be growing
    in influence with the new Tory government, the Turkish community in
    Canada is up in arms, sounding alarm bells about being sidelined by
    the Harper government.

    "Our viewpoint is never considered," says Kevser Taymaz, an executive
    of the Federation of Canadian Turkish Associations. After Mr. Harper
    met an Armenian delegation in March, Ms. Taymaz says the Turkish
    community wrote a letter to the prime minister requesting a similar
    meeting, but were referred to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

    "I don't know if [Mr. Harper] will meet us," she says. "We are being
    deliberately sidelined."

    "If [the Harper government is] talking about votes, there are 100,000
    Canadians of Turkish origin in Canada," Ms. Taymaz says. She also
    condemns Canadian politicians for "listening to the views of the
    Armenian lobby."

    "History cannot be decided upon by political lobbying," she says.

    "Here in Ottawa, we have people who lost their relatives to the
    Armenian bandits [in 1915]."

    Ms. Taymaz also says people of Turkish origin are not used to the idea
    of lobbying governments because "we have come to terms with the past
    [regarding the genocide]."

    She added that Armenian children in Canada are being raised on a diet
    of hatred towards Turks and Turkey, and that this does not bode well
    for Canada as a whole.

    "Now we know Canadian companies will be left out of bids," she says of
    a story circulating in Turkish media following the recall of Aydemir
    Erman, Turkey's Ambassador to Canada, last week.

    Yonet Tezel, Counsellor at the Embassy of Turkey, says Mr. Erman was
    called to Turkey for consultations, but could not say when the envoy
    will be back in Ottawa.

    "We are very concerned and worried that these claims of genocide are
    finding reflection at that level in Canada," says Mr. Tezel.

    "It is very serious, it is an attack on us," he says. Asked what kind
    of reciprocal measures Turkey would take, Mr. Tezel says he is not
    in position to divulge any information.

    Kim Girtel, a spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Canada, says the
    department was notified last Thursday that the Turkish ambassador is
    being recalled for "consultations for a short time" in Ankara. "These
    consultations are internal to the government of Turkey and we will
    not speculate at this time," she says.

    Dmitri Kitsikis, an expert on Turkey and professor of international
    relations at the University of Ottawa, says the diplomatic spat is
    not likely to last long because it is a symbolic move designed to
    appease the Turkish military, the real power brokers in the country.

    Mr. Kitsikis says the Turkish military, who are the custodians of
    the country's secular politics has had an uneasy relationship with
    the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who heads a
    moderate Islamist party.

    "The victim is Mr. Erdogan himself, the military could step in and
    take power," says Mr. Kitsikis, who adds that Mr. Harper's comments
    on the Armenian genocide do not help democracy in Turkey.

    "Why did he say that except if he wants a coup in Turkey," Mr. Kitsikis
    says.

    [email protected]

    http://www.em bassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_ path=/2006/may/10/genocide/

    --Boundary_(ID_foVyk8 v8pUoNYI48/X7PXA)--
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