Guelph Mercury (Ontario, Canada)
February 9, 2007 Friday
Final Edition

Recognition of genocide a political issue in Turkey

by VARTAN OSKANIAN

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, mass killings of Armenians during the
First World War.

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 neighbours. 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.

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 neighbours and with history.

Vartan Oskanian is minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of
Armenia. This column appeared in the Los Angeles Times.