ARMENIA DOES NOT WANT ANY COURT FOR GENOCIDE CLAIMS
Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Dec 5 2006
ANKARA (JTW) Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian stated in an
interview with the Turkish daily New Anatolian that "each day Armenia
and Turkey miss a chance to establish bilateral relations".
In Oskanian words, "Turkey unfortunately does not want to establish
diplomatic relations equally with all three Caucasus nations and play
a more constructive role". He added "So that opportunity was missed.
The second opportunity has come out as closer cooperation with the
European Union. At the same time that Turkey is negotiating its EU
accession, today Turkey has the opportunity to play a role as a
bridge between the Caucasus and Europe. That opportunity is also
is being missed, but the biggest opportunity that we’re missing
is the interaction between our two peoples. Fifteen years have
passed (since Armenia declared its independence in 1991), and no
interaction is seen on the border. Our peoples do not know each other
well and old memories are being reinforced, our focus today is the
wrong focus. We have got to focus on new relations, open borders,
establishing diplomatic relations and that is what I mean by saying
missed opportunities". Turkey last year called Armenia to establish
a joint commission to discuss the historical disputes, yet Armenian
rejected the offer arguing "there is nothing to be discussed".
Commenting on the Turkish Government’s intention to bring an action
and the International Court on the issue of the Armenian Genocide,
the Armenian FM Oskanian said, "For us, there is no court case, we
will never talk about this, because we grew up with the real evidence,
our parents and our grandparents. That living evidence of this tragedy,
survival of Genocide, I am the son of one them. So for Armenians there
has never been an issue where we ourselves have to prove this by going
to court, that this Genocide happened. The question for us is to get a
political solution. Because the issue is neither historical nor legal,
it is political. And Turkey has politicized this by pursuing a policy
of denial at the state level."
However Turkish experts argue that the ‘genocide’ accusation is a
legal matter. Dr. Nilgun Gulcan for insatance argues that "Armenia
knows that they have no chance in legal area". She continued as:
"Genocide, like murder, a crime. It is a legal matter. You cannot
accuse anyone without any verdict. You have to go to a court if
there is a crime. But the Armenians have always gone to the political
institutions like the parliaments. Oskanian says that he grew up with
the real evidence. ‘Real evidence’ means just the stiories of his
grand mother and father. The old Armenians never spoke how many Turk
they killed. They just spoke about the suffereings. Anatolia was full
of sufferings at that time. Not only the Armenians but also the Turks
suffered a lot. More than half a million Muslims were slaughtered by
the armed Armenian groups. We also grew up with the real evidence. Our
grand parents also told us how the Armenian attacks were bad, how
many Turkish babies were murdered by the Armenians, how many Turkish
women were raped by the Armenian criminals etc. Of course there is a
need to go to a court. And I think Turkey fisrt should apply a court
for the Turkish and Kurdish genocide committed by the Armenians."