Hürriyet, Turkey
Feb 9 2007

Oktay Eksi: Closing the barn door after the horses are out: Gul and
the Armenian claims

If only we could have asked Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who said
yesterday in Washington, DC "Preventing the passage of the Armenian
genocide bill is the duty of the Turkish people, the government,
civil society organizations, and intellectuals," where he had been up
until now.

For years now we have been saying, in this column, that books should
be printed, international conferences should be held, films should be
made, foreign student groups should be formed, and that we should
abandon our defense strategy and move to full war mentality on this
matter.

Is there even one example which shows that Abdullah Gul, who has
headed up our foreign policy now for four years, has listened to any
of this?

It is only now that it has become clear that the US Congress will
pass a bill recognizing that "The Turks did commit genocide" that Gul
decides to visit Washington and fire some salvos into the Congress.

Pushing aside anything which has been written in this column or
others on the matter, what about examples such as when Professor
Justin McCarthy spoke before the Turkish Parliament, urging "Why
don’t you pass out the books that have been published on this
question, the ones which are sitting in the depos of the ministries,
so at least people can learn the basic theses of this matter." That
too never happened.

Maybe you have read about this in the newspapers. Recently, TIME
magazine’s European edition announced a decision not to amend the
phrase "Turkish genocide" with any cautioning words. In fact, it even
offered a free 52 minute DVD along with the up to 550 thousand
magazines it sold across Europe, the DVD being a focus on the
"genocide carried out by the Turks." In addition, it also announced
that it was publishing a full page ad from Armenian sources free of
charge. All of this, it turns out, in response to the fact that the
Ankara Chamber of Commerce gave a paid-for ad and a DVD aiming at
"promoting tourism to Turkey" which some then claimed aimed to "deny
the genocide and trick people with lies."

As you can see, some of the things we do just wind up making the
situation messier. Because up until now, no one has stepped forward
to coordinate this business for Turkey, neither the government, nor
the Foreign Ministry in particular.

Never mind the DVD business though. I wonder whether Abdullah Gul has
even heard of the British Turkish Federation’s move to have January
27 be made into a "Remembering our Slain Diplomats Day"? Both Mehmet
Baydar and Bahadir Demir were two Turkish diplomats slain by the
militant Armenian group ASALA.