CU EXPERTS WATCH U.S.-TURKISH RELATIONS
By Paula Pant Colorado Daily Staff Writer
Colorado Daily, CO
Oct 12 2007
International affairs experts at CU are keeping close tabs on
U.S.-Turkey relations, which were threatened Wednesday when the
U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a bill recognizing
the Ottoman Turkish government’s treatment of Armenians in 1915 as
"genocide."
Turkey, which borders Iraq to its north and is the easternmost flank
of NATO, is a key ally in the U.S. conflict in Iraq. The U.S. depends
on Turkish ground and airspace as it maneuvers around the Middle East,
and it lauds Turkey – a secular Islamic state – as a beacon for the
rest of the region.
But that relationship has come into question with the Congressional
committee’s vote, which has infuriated Turks.
On Thursday the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. responded to the House
declaration by returning to Turkey for at least seven to ten days.
"It’s an issue of nationalism," said CU professor of history and
international affairs Robert Schulzinger. "For the Turks, this is
an absolutely forbidden subject, and people suffer very seriously if
they’re charged with genocide."
It is illegal to "insult Turkishness" in Turkey, and many scholars and
journalists have been jailed for even posing the academic question
as to whether or not the Ottoman government – the precursor to the
modern-day Turkish republic – committed genocide against ethnic
Armenians living in eastern Anatolia in 1915.
Earlier this year Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor
openly critical of Turkey’s genocide denial, was assassinated in
broad daylight in Istanbul by a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist.
CU scholars say factual evidence leaves no question that 1915’s
tragedy was, indeed, genocide, and not – as Turks argue – an act of
civil war pitted against a World War I backdrop.
"As a matter of historical fact, it was genocide," Schulzinger said.
But Turkey’s "genocide denial is not uncommon," said CU anthropology
professor Paul Shankman. "You even have Holocaust deniers today who
have large audiences in parts of the world."
U.S. politicians "on both sides of the aisle ~J recognize that this
event ~J wasn’t a civil war, it was a genocide," Shankman said. The
House Foreign Affairs Committee has considered non-binding resolutions
to declare it a genocide for more than 20 years, but pressure from the
Clinton and the first George Bush White Houses, which were worried
about straining relations with Turkey, has historically kept the
"genocide" label at bay – until now.
CU scholars say the committee’s decision to recognize it as genocide
wasn’t partisan and wasn’t intended to undermine President George
W. Bush, who strongly urged Congress not to pass it.
"This is just a straight moral issue," Shankman said.
But it could have broad current-events implications – particularly
considering that Turkish military and warplanes have recently been
situated along the Turkey-Iraq border. The Turks have grown weary of
Iraq’s Kurdish rebels, who Turks claim have been crossing the border
to attack Turkish troops.
"There are people who are arguing that if this resolution goes all
the way through [Congress], it will alienate Turkey from the United
States and allow them to pursue a unilateral move against the Kurds,"
Shankman said. "But I’m not convinced."
Turkey severed military and economic ties with France last year
after it declared the 1915 tragedy a "genocide." The two nations
re-established economic ties after six months.
A spokesperson for Mark Udall, the congressman who represents
Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District which includes Boulder and
Eldorado Springs, could not reach Udall by the Daily’s deadline to
report his stance on the issue.
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