Christian Science Monitor
March 16 2005

In Turkey, taboo lifts over past treatment of Armenians

Last week, Prime Minister Erdogan proposed a joint study into
Armenian claims of genocide.

By Yigal Schleifer | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

ISTANBUL, TURKEY – When Turkish executive Noyan Soyak helped found a
group to bring together businessmen from Turkey and Armenia, the
organization stepped into a gaping void.
“When we started [in 1997], it was difficult even to publicly
pronounce the word ‘Armenia’ or ‘Armenians’ in Turkey,” says Mr.
Soyak, whose group today has some 250 Turkish and Armenian members.

The Armenian issue has long been one of the most fraught in Turkey,
the limits of its discussion strictly controlled by the state. Driven
apart by nearly a century of hatred and accusations of genocide, the
two neighbors became further estranged after diplomatic relations
were broken off by Ankara in 1993, in the wake of Armenia’s
occupation of a large chunk of territory belonging to Turkish ally
Azerbaijan.

But Soyak and others say something has changed – that Turkey’s
increasing democratization and reforms related to its European Union
membership bid have slowly started to soften the country’s historical
stance.

Despite the lack of official relations, a growing number of
nongovernmental Turkish groups – from academics and businessmen to
musicians and women’s organizations – are now meeting with their
Armenian counterparts, in the process helping to redefine the debate
in Turkey and ease the enmity between the two nations.

“Any and all kinds of relationships are important for softening up
the infrastructure for the politicians,” Soyak says. “Governments
can’t move as quickly as we do, so civil society groups are leading
the way.”

Hrant Dink, the editor of Agos, a newspaper serving Turkey’s Armenian
community, says the evolution of what is allowed to be said can be
seen in the pages of his publication. When Agos was launched 10 years
ago, Mr. Dink took an indirect approach to writing about the past.
“Previously, when we talked about history, we didn’t mention things
that happened but focused on culture instead,” says Dink, speaking in
the newspaper’s Istanbul office.

“Slowly we started to ask what happened to the Armenians,” he says.
“Now we’re at the point of telling what happened.”

Even if the subject is “no longer taboo” as Dink says, the debate
still fundamentally divides Turkey and Armenia. Armenians say the
Ottomans killed 1.5 million of their people from 1915 to 1923 through
deportations and mass killings in what is now eastern Turkey.
Armenians have been waging an international campaign to have this
recognized as genocide; more than a dozen nations do so today. Turkey
rejects the genocide claim. It admits that Armenians were killed but
disputes the number and says that the deaths were unorganized and
part of wider regional violence that also affected Muslim Turks.

Until recently, the Turkish state’s official version of events was
all that could be aired publicly. But observers say that democratic
reforms – many of them the result of pressure by the EU – have
created more space for public debate on the topic.

“The level of education has gone up and civil society has expanded,
so the state can no longer dominate and monopolize the public
sphere,” says Muge Gocek, a Turkish sociologist who is the
co-organizer of the Workshop for Armenian-Turkish Studies, an annual
gathering of Turkish and Armenian scholars.

In an unusual turn, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan called last
week for a study by Turkish and Armenian historians of claims of
genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turkish troops. The Armenian Foreign
Ministry has rejected Mr. Erdogan’s proposal.

Indeed, those involved in Turkish-Armenian reconciliation efforts
caution that the road towards normalizing relations is still very
bumpy. Turkish officials say they believe Armenian genocide claims
will lead to demands for reparations and territory.

Ustun Erguder, a Turkish political scientist and member of the
Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission, a group of academics and
former diplomats from both sides, says the association of the word
“genocide” with the barbarity of Nazi Germany makes the claim hard
for Turks. “I think Turks have come a long way even to say, ‘We did
something wrong to the Armenians.’ ”

The issue remains explosive. When Orhan Pamuk, a famous Turkish
author, stated in a Swiss paper last month that “a million Armenians
were killed in Turkey,” the response included death threats and
charges of dishonoring the state filed against him in court.

Van Krikorian, a former chairman of the Armenian Assembly of America,
says the only way forward is more dialogue. “On the Turkish side and
the Armenian side, people need to feel they can discuss what happened
and not feel as though somebody is going to attack them,” he says.