German Bundestag’s Armenian Resolution Strains Turkey-Germany Relations
Journal of Turkish weekly
June 17 2005
BERLIN, JTW (Jan SOYKOK) – The German Bundestag parliament adopted a
resolution on Thursday condemning the so-called massacre of up to 1.5
million ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 90 years ago. Turkish
experts find the timing strange. Turkish politicians similarly argued
that the Germans took a resolution without any discussion. Turkish
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan Straining relations with Turkey German
Prime Minister Schroeder for not making anything to prevent the
resolution. Turkey’s foreign minister Abdullah Gul denounced the
resolution as “irresponsible, appalling and injurious” to relations
between the two countries.
“IRRESPONSIBLE AND NARROW-MINDED”
The Bundestag resolution criticized the current government of Turkey
for “neglecting to address the issue” in a forthright manner.
“We note this decision with regret and we strongly condemn it,” said a
statement released by Turkish foreign ministry. The statement accused
the resolution of being rooted in “domestic politics” and called it
“irresponsible and narrow-minded”.
Turkey acknowledges the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of deaths
during 1915-17 but does not accept that there was a state-sponsored
extermination plan. Turkish documents also prove that more than
520,000 Turkish people were massacred by the Armenian armed groups
during the Armenian riot. The Armenian nationalists aimed to set up an
independent Armenian state in eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire,
yet they failed.
Armenia argues that Turkey should no be accepted as full-member to
the EU before it officially recognize the Armenian claims as truth.
Some Europen politicians give support to the Armenians including
German CDU leader Merkel. Thus the Armenian issue has complicated
Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union, though Armenia is not
a EU member. Dr. Sedat Laciner from the Ankara-based think tank ISRO
says “there is no link between Armenian issue and Turkey’s EU bid.
The Armenian issue has been used to prevent Turkey’s EU membership
by the anti-Turkish circles in the EU”. According to Dr. Laciner,
“Merkel or any other German politicians really care Armenians, they
simple try to stop the Turks in”.
“German, French, Dutch and many other parliaments suddenly remembered
the events happened almost a century ago. The 1915 Relocation Campaign
strangely became one of the ‘most vital’ issue of EU’s foreign
relations. On the other hand 20 percent of Azerbaijan has been under
Armenian occupation, no German or French MP remembers it.
More than 1 million Azerbaijanis have been refugees and no human rights
organizations in Europe makes any help to them. The only problem is
the events happened a century ago. The French MPs refuse to accept the
Algerian Genocide, though the Algerian President urged France has to
accept the genocide. The French President says the ‘Armenian genocide’
issue should be left to the historians. However the French Parliament
and the President himself do not leave the historical problems between
Turkey and Armenians to the historians. I do not find the EU leaders
sincere in Armenian issue”
The Armenians rioted during the First World War and attacked Turkish
and Kurdish villages. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims were massacred
and many more were forced to emigrate to the Western provinces of
the Ottoman State. The Armenian bandits further attacked the Ottoman
troops from the back when they involved hot clashes against the
Russian occupying troops. Therefore, the Istanbul Government decided to
relocate the Armenians from Eastern provinces to the southern provinces
of the State Starvation, disease, attacks by Kurdish bandits resulted
in mass fatalities. According to the official documents more than
100,000 Armenians died in this campaign. The Armenian politicians
argue the figure is more than 1 million (some says 1,5, some other
Armenians argue the figure is 2,5 million). The figure is debatable
and the Armenian historians never use an archive document to prove
their arguments.
TURKEY CONDEMNS THE GERMAN PARLIAMENT
Turkey has strongly condemned approval of the resolution by the
German parliament.
Releasing a statement, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA)
said “The German parliament adopted a resolution about the events
of 1915. We regret and strongly condemn it. Turkey explained its
views to German authorities on numerous occasions. We pointed out
to unilateral content of the decision, serious mistakes in the text,
and lack of information. We stressed that approval of such a decision
by Germany which we always considered one of our friendly and allied
countries, will play havoc with our relations.”
“However, we regret to see that the German government did not take
into consideration all our warnings. It is evident that the initiative
stemmed from domestic political purposes. Use of such a sensitive
issue for political purposes is nothing but irresponsibility and
narrow-mindedness. The decision includes totally baseless allegations
that almost all Armenians in Anatolia were destroyed. The decision
recommending the German government to include ‘relocation and
destruction of Armenians’ in state education policies, includes
extremely dangerous and provocative proposals that could led enmity
among German young people against Turks.”
“Turkey advocates that historical events should be discussed by
historians and scientists instead of politicians and parliaments.
Therefore, we have opened our archives to all researchers including
Germans and Armenians. Also, Turkey proposed Armenia to set up a
joint commission to examine Turkish-Armenian relations during the
era of the Ottoman Empire.”
“Turkey is in reconciliation with its past. Turkey does not need
decisions of foreign parliaments to deal with any part of its
history. If the German parliaments needs to reconcile with its own
history, it should handle it under its own historical responsibilities
instead of putting forward such baseless allegations against Turkey”.
Earlier in the day, the German parliament unanimously adopted a
resolution envisaging commemoration of so-called Armenian genocide.
The resolution was brought onto the parliamentary agenda by
[opposition] CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social
Union).
GERMANS LOOK FOR A FRIEND IN GENOCIDE
Dr. Davut Sahiner on the other hand accuses the German MPs of looking
for a partner in genocide. Sahiner said “Germans do not want to be
the only nation who committed genocide”:
“Germans know that the Ottoman Empire did not commit genocide against
any nation. Turks and Germans were allies during the First World War.
When the Armenians attacked the Ottoman troops during the
Ottoman-Russian Conflicts, the Germans urged the Ottomans to relocate
or to destroy the Armenians. However the Turkish statesmen refused
to implement the German plans and decided resettle the Eastern
Armenians to the southern provinces. They did not touch the Armenians
of Istanbul and those in Western provinces. During the same conflicts
the Russians destroyed or forced to immigration thousands of Muslims
in the Caucasus. More than half million of Muslims were massacred
by the Armenians. Even the Russians were horrified by the Armenian
massacres. Not only during the First World War, even after the War the
Armenians massacred more Muslims with the occupying French troops till
the Turkish victory. When Turkey established independent Republic of
Turkey, Mustafa Kemal called the Armenian to return their homes in
Anatolia. Yet most of them had immigrated to the Western Europe and
the Northern America. And very little returned.
Nevertheless about 100,000 Armenians still live in Istanbul and in
other Turkish cities. More than 50,000 Armenians from Armenia also
work in Istanbul.”