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ARMENIA, TURKEY CONTINUE RSVP-FIGHT
EurasiaNet.org
Feb 4 2015
February 4, 2015 - 3:54am, by Giorgi Lomsadze
Not being invited to a big occasion usually causes bad blood, but,
in Turkey and Armenia's case, it was actually mutual invitations that
started the trouble. After trading invites to anniversaries of two
major historic events, the two countries' leaders are waging a war
of letters larded with testy remarks and history lessons.
Armenia on February 2 described as a "petty trick" Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan's invitation to President Serzh Sargsyan to
attend Turkey's April 23-24 centennial commemoration of the Battle of
Gallipoli, a critical World-War-I campaign in which Ottoman Turkey
repulsed an Allied invasion. The invitation is "amoral" and runs
counter to all norms of protocol, declared Deputy Foreign Minister
Shavarsh Kocharian.
Sargsyan earlier had invited Erdogan to come to Yerevan on the same
date to attend Armenia's commemoration of Ottoman Turkey's 1915-16
slaughter of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians; deaths it
condemns as genocide.
As Yerevan no doubt knew, the chances were less than remote that the
increasingly sultanesque Erdogan would shuttle on over to see Turkey's
Ottoman forbearers condemned for genocide.
His response was to ask Sargsyan to attend the Gallipoli memorial.
But Sargsyan, a chess-player who knows an attempted checkmate
when he sees one, angrily threw out the counter-invitation and
accused Erdogan's administration of deliberately timing Turkey's
battle-centennial to overshadow Armenia's genocide-centennial.
In an open letter to Erdogan, the Armenian president wrote that it's
not an Armenian custom to accept an invitation from someone who has
not yet responded to an invitation from the intended guest.
Batting the ball back, Erdogan's office sniped in a lengthy
invective.that Armenia apparently cannot "appreciate Turkey's sincere
steps."
And so the rhetoric is likely to continue. While this exchange
may sound familiar, it again underlines that earlier attempts at
reconciliation have fallen flat and that, historic opportunity or no,
the neighbors are back to square one.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/71911
EurasiaNet.org
Feb 4 2015
February 4, 2015 - 3:54am, by Giorgi Lomsadze
Not being invited to a big occasion usually causes bad blood, but,
in Turkey and Armenia's case, it was actually mutual invitations that
started the trouble. After trading invites to anniversaries of two
major historic events, the two countries' leaders are waging a war
of letters larded with testy remarks and history lessons.
Armenia on February 2 described as a "petty trick" Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan's invitation to President Serzh Sargsyan to
attend Turkey's April 23-24 centennial commemoration of the Battle of
Gallipoli, a critical World-War-I campaign in which Ottoman Turkey
repulsed an Allied invasion. The invitation is "amoral" and runs
counter to all norms of protocol, declared Deputy Foreign Minister
Shavarsh Kocharian.
Sargsyan earlier had invited Erdogan to come to Yerevan on the same
date to attend Armenia's commemoration of Ottoman Turkey's 1915-16
slaughter of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians; deaths it
condemns as genocide.
As Yerevan no doubt knew, the chances were less than remote that the
increasingly sultanesque Erdogan would shuttle on over to see Turkey's
Ottoman forbearers condemned for genocide.
His response was to ask Sargsyan to attend the Gallipoli memorial.
But Sargsyan, a chess-player who knows an attempted checkmate
when he sees one, angrily threw out the counter-invitation and
accused Erdogan's administration of deliberately timing Turkey's
battle-centennial to overshadow Armenia's genocide-centennial.
In an open letter to Erdogan, the Armenian president wrote that it's
not an Armenian custom to accept an invitation from someone who has
not yet responded to an invitation from the intended guest.
Batting the ball back, Erdogan's office sniped in a lengthy
invective.that Armenia apparently cannot "appreciate Turkey's sincere
steps."
And so the rhetoric is likely to continue. While this exchange
may sound familiar, it again underlines that earlier attempts at
reconciliation have fallen flat and that, historic opportunity or no,
the neighbors are back to square one.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/71911