Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Armenian PM Condemns Turkey's Threat To Deport 100,000 Armenians

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Armenian PM Condemns Turkey's Threat To Deport 100,000 Armenians

    ARMENIAN PM CONDEMNS TURKEY'S THREAT TO DEPORT 100,000 ARMENIANS

    RTT News
    http://www.rttnews.com/Content/MarketSensitiv eNews.aspx?Id=1244001&SM=1
    March 18 2010

    Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian on Wednesday condemned his
    Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan for threatening to deport
    some 100,000 Armenians living in Turkey without citizenship, stating
    that such threats would harm relations between the two countries.

    "These kinds of political statements do not help to improve relations
    between our two states," Sarkisian said. "When the Turkish prime
    minister allows himself to make such statements it immediately for
    us brings up memories of the events of 1915."

    Sarkisian made the remarks while addressing the country's parliament
    on Wednesday, just hours after Erdogan said in an interview with the
    BBC Turkish service he might ask some 100,000 Armenians living in
    Turkey without proper documents to leave the country.

    "There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our country," Erdogan
    said. "Only 70,000 of them are Turkish citizens, but we are tolerating
    the remaining 100,000. If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000
    to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don't
    have to keep them in my country."

    Most of the 170,000 Armenians living in Turkey have settled in
    Istanbul and are currently sending remittances home from there. Most
    of them moved to Turkey after a deadly earthquake devastated their
    impoverished home country in 1998.

    Erdogan's comments on Wednesday came a couple of weeks after a
    US Congressional committee approved a resolution that described
    the massacre of Armenians by Turkish forces during World War I as
    genocide, ignoring warnings from Turkey that ties between the two
    countries would be hurt if the measure was adopted.

    The resolution was narrowly approved by the House Foreign Affairs
    Committee on 4th March in a 23 to 22 vote. The House Resolution 252
    urges U.S. President Barack Obama to ensure that his administration's
    future foreign policies reflects an understanding of the Armenian
    "genocide."

    Soon after the endorsement of the resolution by the House Foreign
    Affairs Committee, Turkey recalled its ambassador from Washington for
    consultations on the issue. Ankara also said in a statement that it
    was condemning "this resolution which accuses the Turkish nation of
    a crime it has not committed".

    The resolution will now be put to vote in the full House. US officials
    have indicated that the resolution could be put to vote in the full
    house despite opposition from the Obama administration, which has
    urged lawmakers to keep the measure from a vote in the full U.S.

    House.

    "Congress is an independent body, and they are going to do what
    they decide to do," Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon told
    reporters on Wednesday ahead of speech at the Brookings Institute. He
    also denied reports that the Obama administration had reached a
    deal with Democratic congressional leaders to block the resolution,
    contradicting earlier claims by the State Department.

    It, however, was not the first time that a similar resolution on the
    issue has passed the committee stage. The Foreign Affairs Committee
    approved a similar genocide measure in 2007, but was shelved ahead
    of a House vote following intensive pressure from the George W Bush
    administration.

    Following the approval of the resolution by the US House Foreign
    Affairs Committee, the Swedish parliament also followed suit by
    recognizing the Armenian Genocide by Turkish forces in 1915 in a 131
    to 130 ballot held on 11th March. Turkey reacted by canceling the
    planned visit of Prime Minister Erdogan to Sweden and by recalling
    its ambassador to that European country.

    Despite Turkey's anger at the US and Swedish move, Armenia, welcomed
    the endorsement of the resolutions, and described them as an important
    step towards the prevention of crimes against humanity.

    Turkey denies the occurrence of any genocide of Armenians during
    World War I and insists that those killed were victims in the chaotic
    collapse of the Ottoman empire, prior to the birth of modern Turkey
    in 1923.

    Erdogan on Wednesday criticized the resolutions in the US and
    Sweden that described the killings of Armenians in Ottoman Empire as
    "genocide," and said that those actions "unfortunately have a negative
    impact on our sincere attitudes." He added that such resolutions
    "harm the Armenian people as well... and things become deadlocked".

    Warning that the resolutions could disrupt the Turkey-Armenia
    reconciliation process launched last year, Erdogan said the Armenian
    immigrants were allowed to live and work in Turkey as a "display of
    our peaceful approach, but we have to get something in return."

    Turkey and Armenia have not had any diplomatic or economic relations
    after Armenia declared its independence in 1991. In addition, Turkey
    also closed its borders with Armenia in 1993 as a token of support
    for Azerbaijan, which has a territorial conflict with Armenia.

    The developments come almost a year after Turkey and Armenia announced
    last April of having reached a historic deal that would normalize
    relations between the two sides. Though the deal has strong backing of
    the international community, it is currently on the brink of collapse
    as both Turkey and Armenia are yet to ratify the agreement.

    One of the hurdles to Turkey's ratification of the agreement sprung
    up recently after Armenia's Constitutional Court ruled on 12th
    January that the deal with Turkey should not breach the country's
    Independence Declaration, which states that the Republic of Armenia
    "stands in support of the task of achieving international recognition
    of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia."

    Turkey objected to the Armenian Constitutional Court ruling, insisting
    that the ruling was based on "preconditions and restrictive findings"
    that undermine the "fundamental objectives" of the protocols. Turkish
    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the court ruling as
    "unacceptable" and has said it could undermine the reconciliation
    efforts between the two countries.

    Turkey's parliament initially delayed ratifying the protocols, as it
    linked the establishment of diplomatic relations to negotiations on
    the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Armenian troops currently occupy the
    enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh after they helped Armenian separatists to
    seize control of the enclave from Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey,
    in the early 1990s.

    Turkey demands the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave conflict be resolved
    through international meditations and has kept the withdrawal of
    Armenian forces from the enclave as a condition for ratifying the
    agreement.
Working...
X