MEHMET Y. YILMAZ: FOLLOWING THE HAGUE’S SREBRENITSA DECISION: TIME TO CHANGE OUR ARMENIAN STRATEGY

Hurriyet, Turkey
March 1 2007

As we all know, Turkey’s usual response to Armenian claims of genocide
has been "let’s leave this subject to the historians."

Which means, we expect that historians will sit down, examine all the
documents from both sides, as well as from third countries, and make
a decision. I don’t think I need to point out that this scenario is
never actually going to take place. The real problem is what label
the historians will decide to put on the tableau which emerges as
they do their work; I don’t think this is really a job which falls
to them. Because opining on the tableau which emerges means the
same thing as issuing a subjective view, and it is an unavoidable
truth that everyone will act according to their own beliefs. So,
once again, the problem will not be solved. Some historians will say
"it was genocide," while others assert "it wasn’t."

The recent decision from the International Court of Justice on the
"ethnic cleansing" and the allegations of genocide in Srebrenitsa,
Bosnia signals to us where we should be looking for solutions to this
problem. Because it makes absolutely no sense to look for a decision
to be issued on genocide in any of the local parliaments in the
world. Turkey should start preparing for this case to be brought to
the Hague’s International Court of Justice, and should begin to focus
its efforts in this direction. In fact, maybe it should even create a
special undersecretariat simply for this purpose, a body which would be
able to turn to domestic and internation law experts for information,
and which would have easy and open access to all of the state’s many
documents on this matter. We have accustomed ourselves to leaving
debate on this subject open to the flow of developments outside of
us, rather than taking action into our own hands. But we have got to
change our strategy, and bring the fast-paced developments on this
subject under our control. The government must not be dissuaded by
the atmosphere of election season, and must not allow this subject
to be postponed!