AS TURKEY’S WORLD TURNS
By Tulin Daloglu

Washington Times, DC
TORIAL/108280021/1013
Aug 28 2007

ISTANBUL, Turkey. — Some developments, good or bad, can catch us so
fully by surprise that they feel like a joke. But the best jokes are
a reflection of an emotional threat as they mirror the truth.

Today, the Turkish Parliament will appoint Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gul as the country’s 11th president. Since April, Mr. Gul’s candidacy
has divided Turks. Turkey went to early elections as a result of
this unrest and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a
significant victory. Nevertheless, that doesn’t negate the millions
of protesters who demonstrated in order to try to prevent Mr. Gul and
his wife, who wears a headscarf, from assuming office. The protesters
fear a president with a background in political Islam. But they have
to take this day as a joke, hoping that it will bring laughter of
unity at the end. Yet they have reason to be concerned.

Recently, Bekir Coskun, a prominent secular-minded columnist, wrote
that he would not feel comfortable calling Mr. Gul "my president."

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would not tolerate such
criticism. "Some say that [Mr. Gul] cannot be their president,"
he said. "If they can say such things, first, they need to have
their Turkish citizenship revoked. They can go wherever they want,
and elect whomever they want." Soon, Mr. Coskun received death threats.

The Turkish media rallied to his defense – supporting the right to
speak freely and criticize the government, regardless of whether
or not they agreed with his position. Mr. Erdogan’s spokesman later
issued a statement backpedaling from the attack.

Turkish government officials have blindly refused to acknowledge
that they need to watch what they say, lest their "declarations"
touch off reactionary violence. Last week, the U.S.-based advocacy
group the Anti-Defamation League announced that what happened to the
Armenians at the end of World War I is "tantamount to genocide." The
group also made clear that they "[c]ontinue to firmly believe that
a Congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive
diversion and will not foster reconciliation between Turks and
Armenians." Mr. Gul responded by saying that Israel would pay a heavy
price if it does not renounce the ADL’s position.

When Mr. Gul visited Washington earlier this year, he explained that
"the reason the Jewish lobby gives support to Turkey on this issue
is clear: because Turkey’s relationship with Israel is important to
them." Reading the ADL statement with this thought process in the
background, that the bill "[m]ay put the Turkish Jewish community
at risk," feels like another joke. Many Turks would never hurt
their Jewish community. But there are the reactionaries who could
be spurred to violent anti-Semitic and nationalistic action by such
comments. Turks must not allow controversy over Armenian genocide
claims to hijack their relationship with Israel. The AKP must fight
Turkish anti-Semitism. Israel and the Jewish lobby have worked with
Turkey for decades to prevent the U.S. Congress from passing such
bills. In return, Turkey failed to build its own lobby to do its
own work.

Turkey must acknowledge that a good relationship with Israel is vital
to its relationship with the West. In a recent interview, Pinhas Avivi,
Israel’s ambassador to Ankara, told me that Turkey can only benefit
from good relations with Muslim Arab states, the European Union, the
United States and Israel. "[Y]ou are not important for our state unless
you have good relations with me… If you don"t have good relations
with the U.S. and Arab states, you are not important for the EU,"
he said. The ADL statement highlights how the Armenian genocide bill
has strained Turkey’s relations with its Western alliance, though.

Turkey’s president – and all of the country’s elected representatives –
must be more mindful about the words they use when talking about such
sensitive issues. Turkey’s reactionary and violent element murdered
the beloved Armenian journalist Hrant Dink earlier this year, and
the AKP government has thus far failed to support bringing justice
to this crime.

In the end, harsh rhetoric backed with poor work has a dear
price: affecting Turkey’s most sensitive foreign policy matters in
Washington. But this debate proves that the bill in the U.S. Congress
is less about confronting history and more about politics. A public
opinion poll conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow shows that Turks want
this issue to come to a conclusion. "We found out that the Turkish
people overwhelmingly oppose any kind of resolution in the U.S.

Congress on this issue," Ken Ballen, president of Terror Free Tomorrow,
told me. Turks feel Congress is not a neutral body to judge their
history, Mr. Ballen said. The most important finding in the poll –
the first to examine Turks’ feelings on the issue – is that "three
quarters of the Turkish people said they would be willing to accept
independent historians coming up with judgments on what occurred
during Turkish history," Mr. Ballen said.

Turks’ real desire is for everyone to be open-minded on this issue, and
look at history without current judgments – offering both opportunity
and responsibility to everyone who wants to end this debate. They
believe the last chapter of their history has not been written,
but that it is up to them, not Congress, to write it.

Tulin Daloglu is a free-lance writer.