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For Armenia, Is Turkey's Gallipoli Invite Good-Hearted Or Backhanded

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  • For Armenia, Is Turkey's Gallipoli Invite Good-Hearted Or Backhanded

    Big News Network
    Jan 16 2015


    For Armenia, Is Turkey's Gallipoli Invite Good-Hearted Or Backhanded?


    The Turkish government has reportedly issued a rare invitation to the
    president of Armenia, Serzh Sarkisian, to attend a special ceremony
    marking the 100th anniversary of World War I's Gallipoli campaign.

    The Turkish daily Hurriyet says President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
    sent invitation letters to more than 100 global leaders, including
    Sarkisian.

    The gesture could be interpreted as a sign of rapprochement between
    Ankara and Turkey, which have no diplomatic relations.

    Many, however, may see the invite as a slight.

    The two-day Turkish commemoration, scheduled for April 23-24, overlaps
    with a critical anniversary of Yerevan's own: the centenary of the
    mass slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

    Armenians claim Ottoman troops systematically killed some 1.5 million
    Armenians and deported many more from their traditional homeland in
    what is now eastern Turkey.

    Armenians claim Ottoman troops killed some 1.5 million Armenians and
    deported many more from their traditional homeland in what is now
    eastern Turkey.

    Yerevan and the Armenian diaspora have traditionally commemorated the
    slaughter on April 24 and often use the anniversary as an opportunity
    to lobby Western governments to formally brand the massacre a
    genocide.

    Turkey strongly rejects the term, countering that atrocities were
    committed by both Turks and Armenians during and after World War I.

    The heated dispute, soured further by Armenia's open hostility toward
    Turkish ally Azerbaijan, has left many countries attempting to strike
    a diplomatic balance between Ankara and Yerevan.

    Twenty-two countries recognize the slaughter of Turkey's Armenians as
    genocide, including France, Russia, and Canada.

    Erdogan's invitation instantly sent a flurry of angry comments
    cascading through the Armenian Twitterverse, with one user dismissing
    the gesture as "denial and distraction."

    Tigran Lazarian, the chief spokesman for the Armenian Foreign
    Ministry, accused Erdogan of seeking to keep foreign leaders away from
    Armenian commemorations by creating an impromptu -- and historically
    inaccurate -- anniversary of his own.

    But Richard Giragosian, the director of the Regional Studies Center,
    an independent Yerevan think tank, says those Armenians who support
    normalization between Armenia and Turkey will see the invitation as a
    welcome, if somewhat disingenuous, step.

    "It is, of course, not enough, and it's rather dubious in terms of the
    timing of the Gallipoli commemoration events," he says. "Yet, in a
    situation where we do not have official diplomatic relations, this is
    an important step symbolically."

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (center right) talks to
    Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian during his inauguration in
    Ankara in August 2014.

    In the past year, Turkey and Armenia have taken a handful of baby
    steps aimed at eventually restoring diplomatic ties. Then Prime
    Minister Erdogan by offering Turkey's "condolences" to descendants of
    Armenians killed in 1915.

    The two countries' foreign ministers also exchanged visits, with
    Armenia's Eduard Nalbandian notably attending Erdogan's inauguration
    as president in August 2014.

    A Turkish government official attempted to put a positive gloss on
    Sarkisian's invitation to attend the Gallipoli commemoration, saying
    Armenian and Turkish troops "fought as a kind together" to repel
    Allied forces seeking control of the peninsula on the Dardanelles
    strait.

    It is unclear whether that logic will hold sway in Yerevan, where all
    eyes will be on a series of global events marking the massacre
    anniversary.

    It remains to be seen, meanwhile, how world leaders will react to the
    prospect of dueling invitations. U.S. President Barack Obama is widely
    expected to turn down the Turkish invite. The prime ministers of
    Australia and New Zealand, as well as Britain's Prince Charles --
    whose countries constituted the bulk of the Allies' Gallipoli forces
    -- are expected to attend.

    Sarkisian himself has yet to respond to the gesture, a fact that
    Giragosian attributes in part to domestic unrest over the of an
    Armenian family by an armed Russian soldier in Gyumri.

    If and when the Armenian leader responds, however, Giragosian says he
    hopes Erdogan's offer will be "duly noted, welcomed, and appreciated."

    "Despite the fact that Sarkisian is probably not even intending to
    accept the offer, the invitation should be welcomed," he says. "But
    that's idealistic. In reality, we should expect a deafening silence
    from the Armenian side. And perhaps, in some ways, a diplomatic missed
    opportunity."

    http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php/sid/229435063

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