ENSOY WARNS ISRAEL COULD BE HURT BY GENOCIDE DEBATE

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Aug 31 2007

Though the Turkish government is strongly opposed to any congressional
action by the United States, the Turkish Jewish community has nothing
to fear — but Turkey’s relations with Israel and the US would probably
not survive such a resolution unscathed, said Turkish Ambassador to
the US Nabi ªensoy in remarks to the New York-based Jewish Telegraphic
Agency (JTA).

"I cannot really dismiss that if this resolution does pass, there
will be certain impacts on certain relationships. There is no doubt
about it," ªensoy was quoted as saying in an interview with the JTA
this week.

Last week, the US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reversed its
long-time policy concerning the killings of Anatolian Armenians in the
early 20th century and said the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks
"were indeed tantamount to genocide."

Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in a systematic
genocide campaign by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I,
but Ankara categorically rejects the label, saying that both Armenians
and Turks died in civil strife during World War I, when the Armenians
took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with
Russian troops that were invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

ªensoy also voiced uneasiness over certain emphasis by the ADL on
concerns over safety of the Jewish community in Turkey. "I’m very
disturbed to hear this kind of remark coming from anywhere. They
seem to be forgetting the history of Turks and Jews, which goes back
at least 500 years. We’ve always had the best of relations between
Turks and Jews and the Turkish Jewish community is part-and-parcel —
and an integral part — of the Turkish community," he said.

Similar remarks reflecting Ankara’s uneasiness on the same point were
delivered by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Levent Bilman last week
when he reacted against the ADL statement. "The Jewish community in
our country is a part of our society and there isn’t any particularity
that they should fear concerning developments related to the Armenian
allegations," Bilman said.

"We are expecting the American Jewish organizations to be neutral
about this. Although we’re aware of the fact that this is a very
sensitive issue for the Israeli people and the Jewish community,
what we have to seek is the truth," ªensoy told JTA.

ADL complains about The Jewish Advocate

An article penned by ADL National Director Abraham Foxman and published
in a Boston newspaper, The Jewish Advocate, on Monday was widely
interpreted in Turkey as an apparent show of determination in the ADL’s
stance, vowing that they will "not hesitate to apply the term genocide
in the future." The fact that Foxman’s article was published after he
last week sent a letter addressing Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, saying that the ADL has huge respect for the Turkish people
and has never desired to put the Turkish people and their leaders
into a difficult situation, led to that particular interpretation.

Yet, ADL directors told Turkish officials that the article by Foxman
was actually posted to The Jewish Advocate as of last week, not after
Foxman’s letter to Erdogan, a senior Turkish diplomat, speaking on
condition of anonymity, told Today’s Zaman on Thursday. The same ADL
directors expressed uneasiness over the choice of the newspaper to
publish the article as if it were a brand-new article and asked the
newspaper to remove the article from their Web site, the same Turkish
diplomat said.

The diplomat reiterated Ankara’s expectation of a "rectification" of
their statement by the ADL. Earlier this week, when asked by Today’s
Zaman to elaborate on how a "rectification" could be made by the ADL,
Bilman said the right address for consulting such controversial matters
was historians and that the ADL should refer to historians after
making such an assertive allegation and then review its statement. "The
issue is not closed for Ankara until such a review and rectification
is made. We expect the ADL to rectify its statement because it is
obvious that there is no consensus among historians on how to qualify
the 1915 incidents, contrary to what the ADL has claimed," he said.

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