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ANALYSIS: 'GENOCIDE' TERM STILL NOT USED
The New Age, South Africa
May 6 2014
Tom Wheeler
A South Africa's ambassador to Turkey in the late '90s and early 2000s,
I was amazed to learn of the statement issued by Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan on April 23, the 99th anniversary of the events
commonly known as the Armenian genocide. It was a forbidden topic
during my tenure.
The fact that there was no mention in South African media is probably
attributable to the absence of an identifiable Armenian diaspora here.
Erdogan conveyed his condolences to the descendants of those
Armenians who lost their lives in 1915. The statement, issued in
Turkish, Armenian and seven other languages, elicited widely different
reactions in Turkey and abroad. The Armenian Patriarch Archbishop Aram
Atesyan, based in Istanbul, met with Erdogan. At the other extreme,
the president of Armenia dismissed the statement because Erdogan had
avoided referring to the events as "genocide".
Some commentators have noted that the statement was probably a
foreign policy ploy drafted in the foreign ministry, rather than
in Erdogan's prime ministry. It was seen to be aimed at influencing
relations between Turkey and the US, rather than with Armenia. As it
is, US President Barack Obama in his annual statement on the topic
failed again to use the word "genocide," indicating perhaps that
sound relations with Turkey are more important than the votes of the
Armenian diaspora in the US.
The term genocide is simply not used in Turkey, even though the events
took place several years before the declaration of the Turkish republic
in 1923. Orders for the expulsion of Armenians from Anatolia came
from the Young Turks who ruled the Ottoman Empire during the First
World War.
In 2008 the Armenian diaspora commissioned a British queen's counsel,
Geoffrey Robinson, to study the records to establish whether there was
indeed a case of genocide for Turkey to answer. He did find that by
current definitions genocide did occur. But interestingly he reveals
something not commonly known.
In October 1918, at the end of the First World War, the Young Turks
lost power and the Ottoman Sultan appointed a military tribunal that
found many of them guilty of "deportation and massacre". Oddly, the
Turkish republican government has never used this information in its
own defence.
On the other hand, Turkey was one of the first countries to recognise
the independence of Armenia after the Soviet Union's collapse.
In 2009, the current president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, engaged in some
football diplomacy not unlike the ping-pong diplomacy of the Nixon era
in the US when Nixon used sport as a way to open contact with China.
Gul went to the Armenian capital to watch the European Cup of Nations'
football match between the two countries at the invitation of Armenian
President Serzh Sargsian, who later attended a return match in Bursa,
Turkey.
Regrettably the Swiss-brokered protocol to end the dispute at that
time came to naught.
The cause of the deadlock was the unresolved 1993 invasion and
occupation by Armenia of the Azerbaijan enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan, which also became independent at the demise of the USSR,
is a Turkic-speaking state with which Turkey has close fraternal
relations.
The refusal of Turkey to recognise the events of 1915 as "genocide"
combined with the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh issue have up to now
made a solution impossible.
What then could be the reason for the sudden reconciliatory gesture
by the Turkish prime minister?
The centenary of the mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of
Armenians from Anatolia to Syria and the death of the majority of them,
whether one terms that genocide or not, will be one year from now,
on April 24, 2015.
In his statement, Erdogan, perhaps for the first time ever, made
a clear distinction between the Ottoman Sultanate responsible for
the events of 1915 and the current republican government created 94
years ago.
While Erdogan has been criticised as opportunistic by some of his own
countrymen, on both the right and the liberal left, this is the first
real gesture indicating any shift in the Turkish position that could
lead to possible reconciliation between the two countries and to the
"common future" referred to in the statement.
Armenia certainly needs a solution and an open border with Turkey. It
is a poverty-stricken country without resources and therefore very
much in the thrall of Putin's Russia.
It has already signed up to the Eurasian Union, the means by which
Moscow wishes to reconstruct the empire of the czars.
The unresolved problem of Nagorno-Karabakh remains a stumbling
block but Erdogan's move gives Turkey the political advantage in the
international perception of his country.
Then again, Erdogan's harsh response to Turkey's May Day demonstrations
will probably undo any personal advantage his statement on Armenia
may have brought.
Tom Wheeler is an independent commentator and former diplomat
http://www.thenewage.co.za/blogdetail.aspx?mid=186&blog_id=3029
From: A. Papazian
The New Age, South Africa
May 6 2014
Tom Wheeler
A South Africa's ambassador to Turkey in the late '90s and early 2000s,
I was amazed to learn of the statement issued by Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan on April 23, the 99th anniversary of the events
commonly known as the Armenian genocide. It was a forbidden topic
during my tenure.
The fact that there was no mention in South African media is probably
attributable to the absence of an identifiable Armenian diaspora here.
Erdogan conveyed his condolences to the descendants of those
Armenians who lost their lives in 1915. The statement, issued in
Turkish, Armenian and seven other languages, elicited widely different
reactions in Turkey and abroad. The Armenian Patriarch Archbishop Aram
Atesyan, based in Istanbul, met with Erdogan. At the other extreme,
the president of Armenia dismissed the statement because Erdogan had
avoided referring to the events as "genocide".
Some commentators have noted that the statement was probably a
foreign policy ploy drafted in the foreign ministry, rather than
in Erdogan's prime ministry. It was seen to be aimed at influencing
relations between Turkey and the US, rather than with Armenia. As it
is, US President Barack Obama in his annual statement on the topic
failed again to use the word "genocide," indicating perhaps that
sound relations with Turkey are more important than the votes of the
Armenian diaspora in the US.
The term genocide is simply not used in Turkey, even though the events
took place several years before the declaration of the Turkish republic
in 1923. Orders for the expulsion of Armenians from Anatolia came
from the Young Turks who ruled the Ottoman Empire during the First
World War.
In 2008 the Armenian diaspora commissioned a British queen's counsel,
Geoffrey Robinson, to study the records to establish whether there was
indeed a case of genocide for Turkey to answer. He did find that by
current definitions genocide did occur. But interestingly he reveals
something not commonly known.
In October 1918, at the end of the First World War, the Young Turks
lost power and the Ottoman Sultan appointed a military tribunal that
found many of them guilty of "deportation and massacre". Oddly, the
Turkish republican government has never used this information in its
own defence.
On the other hand, Turkey was one of the first countries to recognise
the independence of Armenia after the Soviet Union's collapse.
In 2009, the current president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, engaged in some
football diplomacy not unlike the ping-pong diplomacy of the Nixon era
in the US when Nixon used sport as a way to open contact with China.
Gul went to the Armenian capital to watch the European Cup of Nations'
football match between the two countries at the invitation of Armenian
President Serzh Sargsian, who later attended a return match in Bursa,
Turkey.
Regrettably the Swiss-brokered protocol to end the dispute at that
time came to naught.
The cause of the deadlock was the unresolved 1993 invasion and
occupation by Armenia of the Azerbaijan enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan, which also became independent at the demise of the USSR,
is a Turkic-speaking state with which Turkey has close fraternal
relations.
The refusal of Turkey to recognise the events of 1915 as "genocide"
combined with the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh issue have up to now
made a solution impossible.
What then could be the reason for the sudden reconciliatory gesture
by the Turkish prime minister?
The centenary of the mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of
Armenians from Anatolia to Syria and the death of the majority of them,
whether one terms that genocide or not, will be one year from now,
on April 24, 2015.
In his statement, Erdogan, perhaps for the first time ever, made
a clear distinction between the Ottoman Sultanate responsible for
the events of 1915 and the current republican government created 94
years ago.
While Erdogan has been criticised as opportunistic by some of his own
countrymen, on both the right and the liberal left, this is the first
real gesture indicating any shift in the Turkish position that could
lead to possible reconciliation between the two countries and to the
"common future" referred to in the statement.
Armenia certainly needs a solution and an open border with Turkey. It
is a poverty-stricken country without resources and therefore very
much in the thrall of Putin's Russia.
It has already signed up to the Eurasian Union, the means by which
Moscow wishes to reconstruct the empire of the czars.
The unresolved problem of Nagorno-Karabakh remains a stumbling
block but Erdogan's move gives Turkey the political advantage in the
international perception of his country.
Then again, Erdogan's harsh response to Turkey's May Day demonstrations
will probably undo any personal advantage his statement on Armenia
may have brought.
Tom Wheeler is an independent commentator and former diplomat
http://www.thenewage.co.za/blogdetail.aspx?mid=186&blog_id=3029
From: A. Papazian