AZG Armenian Daily #077, 29/04/2005
Armenia-Turkey
TURKISH PRIME MINISTER TO SEND A ‘CHALLENGE’
In his reply to Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that came
on April 26, President Robert Kocharian emphasized once again the
necessity of establishing bilateral relations without preconditions
and said that an intergovernmental commission may be set to discuss
key issues in relations, then added, “Governments are responsible for
bilateral relations and we have no right to leave it to historians”.
Despite Armenian President’s unambiguous position, Turkish press wrote
that his answer is evasive and the Turkish Foreign Ministry dubbed it
“full of terminological inexactitudes”. This was done to show the
impossibility of establishing diplomatic relations with Armenia
“without clarifying genocide accusation”.
For that very reason Turkish prime minister overlooked foreign
minister Abdullah Gul’s statement that the Turkish authorities will
issue official announcement only after close examination of Armenian
president’s letter and said, “I read Kocharian’s letter sentence by
sentence. We never said that politics should be left over to
historians and sociologists. We are of course to do the
politics. There are important issues to be solved before taking
political decisions. Those are issues originating from the past. We
are sending a challenge. We are opening our archives. Open yours if
you have. Reason controls the situation. It’s impossible to reach
anywhere by lobbying. Neither is possible through the decisions of
some parliaments. You cannot deny significance of reason and science”.
Ankara’s official announcement shows that Turkey’s position on the
matter has not changed. If it had, Turkish TV would not have labeled
PM Erdogan’s statement as challenge, nor would Aqsam newspaper write
that “Armenia is driven into corner”.
As the reason of the challenge is the Armenian Genocide, which is
internationally recognized, then Turkey’s challenge turns
futile. Turkey’s attempts to cut short the recognition of the Genocide
by the world community will drive Turkey, not Armenia, into
corner. Turkey’s strategy in this situation seems uncertain and US
President’s April 24 speech comes to the foreground.
Apparently, Bush’s announcement filled Erdogan with enthusiasm as he
suggests RA President to check “truthfulness of genocide allegations”
by the help of historians before establishing diplomatic
relations. Thus, the Genocide issue comes to play the key role in
Armenia-Turkey relations and turns into a precondition for Armenia.
It’s not realistic to hope that Armenia will meet Turkey halfway today
when the process of Armenian Genocide recognition is getting momentum
worldwide. Therefore, Turkey’s offer to clarify historicity of
Genocide is nothing but a refusal to get in touch with Armenia. In
this view, today’s super powers — USA, EU and Russia — remain in
position of forging Armenian-Turkish relations the way they like.
This stymies Armenian-Turkish relations more and more. Powers fighting
for zones of influence are coming to battle for orchestrating these
relations. As a result, Armenia is deprived of connection with the
outer world and Turkey of the opportunity to jettison the burden of
history. Being the hostage of its own history, Turkey turns meanwhile
into the captive of the American Congress and will have to be careful
to prevent Genocide resolution from appearing on US agenda.
By Hakob Chakrian
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress