Politics or propaganda?
By Karine Mangasarian

Yerkir
29 April 05

On the eve of the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide the Turkish
Prime Minister Rejep Tayip Erdogan extended a letter to the Armenian
president Robert Kocharian proposing to establish a joint group of
Armenian and Turkish historians and other experts that would research
the events of 1915 and would present the results of the research to
the international community.

At first sight, the Turkish prime minister’s letter could be seen as
a pretext for Turkey to start relations with Armenia had it not been
for the proposal to appeal to the historians of the two countries to
sort out the relations between Armenia and Turkey.

President Robert Kocharian’s answer to Erdogan stated, “Your
proposal to look back at the past cannot be efficient since it
does not deal with the present and the future. In order to engage
in an efficient dialog we need to establish a favorable political
environment.” Kocharian also pointed out that the responsibility
of developing relations between the two countries lies with their
governments and not the historians.

Now that we are familiar with the two letters, what conclusions can we
draw? How sincere was Erdogan’s proposal? Was it not made for merely
propaganda purposes especially that it was made on the eve of the
Genocide commemoration?

Most of the Armenian political forces believe that the Turkish prime
minister’s proposal aimed at countering the increasing international
pressure on Turkey.

“It is obvious that the Turkish prime minister’s proposal was
a political move aimed at minimizing the increasing pressure
on Turkey. I think it was a miscalculated move since it was more
propaganda than anything else, and everyone knows about this,” head
of ARF’s parliamentary faction Levon Mkrtchian said.

As to president Kocharian’s response, Mkrtchian believes his letter
emphasized the weakest points in Erdogan’s letter whereby the latter
tried to transfer the issues that should be dealt with by the state
to the historians.

“This is a groundless proposal and can stand no criticism either from
diplomatic or from academic perspectives. The president’s response is
rather well grounded and reflects the main directions of our foreign
policy,” Mkrtchian said.

Commenting on the possible developments of the incident Mkrtchian,
noted that Erdogan will either reply again or will abstain from any
further activities since the commemoration of the 90th anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide is over and the Turkish political circles
no longer need to launch such propaganda activities.

Chairman of the New Communist Party of Armenia Yuri Manukian noted that
the Turkish prime minister and those Turkish officials who share his
position are first of all the enemies of their own population since
they continue the policies of Sultan Hamid. “The Turkish leadership
never tells the truth to its people. I agree with president Kocharian’s
response.

The time for playing games is over and the Armenian leadership has
to go on pursuing international denunciation of the Genocide with
its foreign policy and in cooperation with the Diaspora Armenian
organizations,” Manukian said adding that these activities should be
carried out not by historians but by politicians.
From: Baghdasarian