Globe and Mail, Canada
May 9 2006

Turks recall envoy over Harper’s remark
OLIVER MOORE

With a report from Gloria Galloway

Turkey’s ambassador to Ottawa has been recalled after Prime Minister
Stephen Harper referred to the mass killing of Armenians nearly a
century ago as a genocide.

The Turkish government, which insists that the deaths were the result
of war and civil strife, said yesterday it had summoned Aydemir Erman
to Ankara for discussion on how best to respond to Mr. Harper.

Whether the killings were a genocide is a touchy subject for Turkey,
which has lobbied in countries around the world against such
recognition. Yesterday, official communication from the government in
Ankara characterized the Armenian claims as “direct attacks against
the Turkish nation’s identity and history.”

There are about 70,000 Armenians living in Canada, mostly in Toronto
and Montreal, and many are equally blunt in their view that what
happened to their ancestors was a genocide.

It was in this climate that Mr. Harper declared last month, on behalf
of the government of Canada, that Armenians had suffered a genocide
at the hands of Turkey during and after the First World War. It was a
position the previous Liberal government had refused to support.

Part of the statement read: “In recent years the Senate of Canada
adopted a motion acknowledging this period as ‘the first genocide of
the twentieth century,’ while the House of Commons adopted a motion
that ‘acknowledges the Armenian genocide of 1915 and condemns this
act as a crime against humanity.’ My party and I support those
resolutions and continue to recognize them today.”

The Turks were immediately critical, and their embassy in Ottawa
issued a statement counselling against meddling in a long-ago
historical event. “Turkey rejects and condemns attempts based on long
years of propaganda and political designs to create one-sided
versions of history and to have lies be acknowledged as if they were
facts,” the statement read in part.

“Genocide is the gravest of crimes against humanity. Distorting the
tragic events in history for political gains surely does not serve
the objective of creating a common future for humanity based on peace
and co-operation.”

The embassy threatened that Mr. Harper’s decision would “adversely
affect the relations between Turkey and Canada.” That prediction came
true with the withdrawal of Mr. Erman, announced yesterday.

A Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said the department had been advised
late last week that the Turkish ambassador would be out of the
country for consultations with his government.

At the House of Commons yesterday afternoon, NDP Leader Jack Layton
praised the Harper government’s decision, saying it was something his
party had been advocating for years. “It is never going to be very
easy to move forward on some of these issues,” he said.

“We think Canadians want their government to speak up on these
issues, even if it creates a certain bumpy road in our relations with
other countries . . . who knows, maybe this dialogue process can help
in the reconciliation which really has to happen if this chapter,
this terrible chapter in global history, is ever able to be closed in
any sense.”

French politicians are also facing Turkish opposition as they craft a
bill making it a crime to deny the existence of the Armenian
genocide. The ambassador to Paris has been recalled as well.