Turkey’s president steps into row
By Delphine Strauss in Ankara

FT
December 18 2008 23:37

Turkey’s president Abdullah Gul intervened on Thursday to defuse an
explosive debate over a campaign by Turkish writers apologising for the
massacres of ethnic Armenians in the last years of the Ottoman empire.

More than 13,000 people have added their names to the website
www.ozurdiliyoruz (`we apologise’) launched on Monday by a group of
intellectuals, in a sign of changing attitudes to one of the most
sensitive episodes in Turkey’s past.

The campaign has angered nationalists.

Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fiercely criticised the initiative
on Wednesday, saying: `It will not have any benefit other than stirring
up trouble, disturbing our peace and undoing the steps which have been
taken.’

But the events of 1915 ` the delicate term used by Turkish diplomats `
remain a subject of bitter contention between Armenians, who say they
suffered genocide, and Turkey, which contends thousands of Turks also
died during the final years of the Ottoman empire and denies systematic
planning.

But Mr Gul distanced himself from that criticism on Thursday, saying in
a statement that while he had worked to promote Turkey’s official
position abroad, the public debate showed Turks now felt `more
self-confident and at peace with their history’.

The diff erence in tone between the president and prime minister may
fuel speculation that relations are cooling between the two men,
long-standing political allies before Mr Gul’s election as president
in July 2007.

Mr Gul won international praise in September when he signalled
rapprochement with Armenia by attending a football match between the
national sides in Yerevan ` the first visit by a Turkish head of state.

Cengiz Aktar, one of the organisers of the online apology, said denial
of the bloodshed of 1915 was `a founding myth of modern Turkey’.

The text of the apology does not use the word genocide, referring
instead to `the Great Catastrophe’, but its implication that modern
Turks bear responsibility for the actions of the Ottoman regime has
provoked furious protest.

Opposition politicians branded the campaign `treason’ and `degeneracy’;
retired diplomats, remembering colleagues killed by Armenian activists
in the 1970s, issued their own declaration; and rival websites such as
(`we don’t apologise’) have sprung up.

Sinan Ulgen, head of the EDAM think-tank, said the debate could hinder
talks, since Armenians would take a tougher line if they thought public
opinion in Turkey had shifted, but the nationalist outcry would in fact
leave less room for concessions.

`We need to give as free rein to the negotiations as we can. . .
unhindered by this sort of public debate which will backfire,’ he
said.

But the campaign reflects frustration among liberals that little has
changed since the murder in 2007 of Hrant Dink, the Armenian
journalist, which at the time sparked an outpouring of sympathy and
hopes of reconciliation.

On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Turkey in
two cases dating back to the 1950s and 60s, ordering it to return
properties seized from two Armenian foundations or pay compensation
totalling ?¬875,000 (£830,000).