TURKEY MISSES ITS CHANCE WITH ARMENIA By FM Oskanian
Los Angeles Times
Feb 7 2007
Hrant Dink’s assassination provided a key opportunity for Turkey to
mend relations with its neighbor.
By Vartan Oskanian, VARTAN OSKANIAN is minister of foreign affairs
of the Republic of Armenia.
ANKARA HAS LET a rare moment pass. Three weeks after the assassination
of acclaimed Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, it appears the
Turkish authorities have grasped neither the message of Hrant’s life
nor the significance of his death.
In the days immediately following Dink’s shocking death, allegedly at
the hands of a fanatic Turkish nationalist, we in Armenia and others
around the world wanted to believe that the outpouring of public grief
would create a crack in the Turkish wall of denial and rejection,
and that efforts would be made to chip away at the conditions that
made the assassination possible. We all hoped that the gravity of
this slaying and the breadth of the reaction would have compelled
Turkey’s leaders to seize the moment and make a radical shift in the
policies that sustain today’s dead-end situation.
However, after those initial hints at conciliation, the message out
of Ankara has already changed. Last week, according to the Turkish
media, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said there can
be no rapprochement with Armenians because Armenians still insist on
talking about the genocide.
The prime minister is right. Armenians do insist on talking about the
genocide. It’s a history-changing event that ought not, indeed cannot,
be forgotten. However, we also advocate a rapprochement. And one is
not a precondition for the other.
Dink was an advocate of many things. Chief among them, he believed
that individuals have the right to think, to talk, to explore, to
debate. Dink knew that if the authorities would just allow people to
reflect and reason aloud, share questions and search for answers,
everything would fall into place. Eventually, through public and
private discourse, Turks would arrive at genocide recognition
themselves.
Equally, he also believed that there must be dialogue between peoples,
between nations – especially between his two peoples, the Armenians
and the Turks. He himself was a one-man dialogue, carrying on both
sides of the conversation, trying to make one side’s needs and fears
audible to the other.
Unfortunately, Turkey’s policy of keeping the Armenian-Turkish border
closed has resulted in a reinforcement of animosities. Dink was one
of many Armenian and Turkish intellectuals who understood that there
needs to be free movement of people and ideas in order to achieve
reconciliation among neighbors. But Turkey insists on maintaining
the last closed border in Europe as a tool to exert pressure on
Armenia, to make its foreign policy more pliant, to punish Armenians
for defending their rights and not renouncing their past. Armenia,
on the other hand, has no preconditions to normalizing relations.
This hermetically closed border combined with a law that prevents
Turkey from exploring its own history and memory (by criminalizing
truth-seekers such as Dink) have created a world in which Turks can’t
know their past and can’t forge their future. They can neither explore
old memories nor replace them with new ones.
Three weeks ago, our grief was mixed with hope. Today, Turkish
authorities continue to defend Article 301, the notorious "insulting
Turkishness" statute used to prosecute even novelists who depict
characters questioning Ankara’s official line on the genocide. And
there is no mention at all of the continuing damage caused by a
closed border.
If Turkey can’t seize the moment, it should not be surprised when
others do. Last week, a resolution was introduced in the U.S.
Congress to affirm the U.S. record on the Armenian genocide.
The Turks will say such a resolution is not needed. They will say that
they’ve called for a joint Armenian-Turkish historical commission
to discuss the genocide, and they don’t need third parties. But
recognition of the Armenian genocide is no longer a historical issue in
Turkey, it’s a political one. Dink would wonder how "on the one hand,
they call for dialogue with Armenia and Armenians, on the other hand
they want to condemn or neutralize their own citizen who is working
for dialogue."
Dink was courageous but not naive. Still, he could not have predicted
this kind of "neutralization." The brutality of his killing serves
several political ends. First, it makes Turkey less interesting for
Europe, which is exactly what some in the Turkish establishment want.
Second, it may scare away Armenians and other minorities in Turkey
from pursuing their civil and human rights. Third, it can frighten
into silence those bold Turks who are beginning to explore these
complicated, sensitive subjects in earnest.
I prefer to think that more noble political ideals will be served.
Hrant Dink will remain an inspiration for Armenians who share his
vision of understanding and harmony among peoples and for Turks who
share his dream of living in peace with neighbors and with history.