Turkish Daily News
March 10 2005
Turkey ready to face past
Thursday, March 10, 2005
The CHP’s Elekdag is confident that Ankara is now well placed to tell
the West to encourage scholarly investigation into genocide
allegations instead of just listening to the Armenians and passing
resolutions recognizing what they say as fact
FATMA DEMÃRELLÃ
ANKARA – Turkish Daily News
In a rare show of solidarity, the Turkish ruling and opposition
parties have joined forces to call for an impartial investigation by
historians into allegations that Armenians were subject to genocide
at the hands of the late Ottoman Empire, a bold response to a
decades-old Armenian campaign and mounting international pressure to
force Turkey to recognize the alleged genocide.
The two-party agreement, which came after a Tuesday meeting between
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and main opposition Republican
People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal, requires a three-step
strategy of initiating a joint investigation of Turkish and Armenian
historians; opening of national archives to scholars, not only in
Turkey and Armenia but also in other countries concerned; and the
establishment by an international organization, such as UNESCO, of a
notary mechanism to make sure the investigation will be conducted in
a strictly scientific manner.
The initiative is hailed as unique because it represents a break
with the traditional Turkish reaction of denying allegations and
condemning parliamentary acknowledgements of them, which has prompted
calls in Europe for Turkey to dare to face its past.
“This is motivated by a desire to be proactive; a desire to stop
being defensive and start an offensive,” said Þükrü Elekdag, a deputy
in the CHP, during an interview with the Turkish Daily News. A former
diplomat who worked extensively on the Armenian issue, Elekdag is the
architect of the strategy that was adopted on Tuesday by both the
ruling and opposition parties.
Parliaments in a number of European countries have passed
resolutions recognizing the allegations that 1.5 million Armenians
were killed in a genocide campaign from 1915-1918, the twilight years
of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey denies the allegations and says
Armenians were killed in a partisan war that also claimed many Muslim
Turkish lives. Turkey also accuses Armenians of carrying out
massacres while siding with invading Russian troops. No serious
scientific investigation has been carried out so far to shed light on
this disputed in history.
Turkey has threatened severing ties with countries whose
parliaments acknowledged the allegations. Observers warn a much
bigger wave of pressure to recognize the alleged genocide may descend
upon Turkey in the months to come as Armenians across the world are
preparing for large-scale commemoration activities to mark the 90th
anniversary of the alleged genocide.
Elekdag said Turkey has a solid case to make now before the
Westerners are likely to push Turkey to recognize the Armenian
allegations as facts.
The issue is becoming more important in connection with Turkey’s
bid to join the European Union. Some conservative politicians in EU
countries have already argued that Turkey’s recognition of the
alleged genocide must be a condition for further progress in its bid
to join the EU.
The call for a scientific study is likely to get a better reception
in Europe than strong official condemnation of parliamentary acts by
Turkey. One Western diplomat described the investigation proposal and
the call for supervision by an international actor as “quite useful.”
“Parliaments in European countries have passed resolutions, and
what we did was to appeal to European lawmakers not to do so. But now
it is in a position to say something more meaningful. Turkey can now
tell them to encourage the proposed scholarly investigation instead
of passing resolutions on the basis of one-sided allegations,”
Elekdag said.
Getting ‘Blue Book’ right:
The Turkish initiative also includes attempts to invalidate charges
made in a World War I-era book written by British diplomat James
Bryce and historian Arnold Toynbee called “The Treatment of Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916,” or the “Blue Book,” as it is more
commonly known.
Turkish parliamentarians are now planning to send a letter to the
British House of Lords and House of Commons, asking the British
Parliament to declare the book a “propaganda tool” and thus deny its
arguments that Ottoman Turks had perpetrated a grave crime against
humanity on Armenians in the era concerned.
Elekdag called the book a “masterpiece of British wartime
propaganda” designed to win over the wavering pro-Entente neutrals,
in particular the United States. A letter drafted by Elekdag calling
on British lawmakers to declare the book propaganda material includes
footnotes referring to the British archives.
The “Blue Book” is one of the basic and most frequently cited
documents presented as a basis for Armenian genocide allegations.
Elekdag said even the British investigators who were trying to find
evidence for the alleged genocide to charge some 144 Turkish
officials detained by the then occupying British forces in connection
with the allegations did not use the book’s arguments as a basis.
–Boundary_(ID_IR6o91HA4ts9H75dUm74Gg)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress