LIKE A SLY FOX, TURKEY WAS TRAPPED WITH TWO LEGS AT ONCE
Karine Ter-Sahakyan
PanARMENIAN.Net
28.03.2009 GMT+04:00
The events of 1915 were a good rehearsal for the Holocaust, and Israel,
that persistently denies the Armenian Genocide, has to remember
it always.
Much has changed in the world since the beginning of 2009, and
for these changes we, above all, owe the new US President Barack
Obama. Still his first decision as a president to close the jail at
Guantanamo made it clear to everyone that now Washington has someone
who keeps his word. And all the following steps of the President have
proved it – from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq to reconsideration
of the war strategy in Afghanistan.
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ However, it is also essential to mention that in
foreign policy of the United States the statements are still only
declarative. Â"FriendshipÂ" with Iran and Â"restartÂ" of relations with
Russia – these are enough to trust the seriousness of intentions of the
White House. Obviously not accidentally did Barack Obama put forward
the candidacy of Philip Gordon for the position of Assistant Secretary
of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. During the hearings of
the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Senator Robert Menendez
asked a range of questions to Senior Fellow for the US Foreign Policy
at the Brookings Institution Dr. Philip Gordon, who in an article
published in November 2007 noted the important role of Turkey for
the US and called in question the necessity to recognize the Armenian
Genocide. Menendez particularly expressed concern over the fact that
a foreign country is trying to impose a veto over domestic policies of
the United States and those of the US Congress. "I have a real concern
that those who would be in a position of authority would actually seek
to fashion that… You suggested the need for balance and I absolutely
agree. I agree that the United States and Congress and citizens,
including in Turkey, need to recognize that a terrible tragedy took
place, that more than a million and a half people were driven from
their homes and massacred. People need to recognize that and honor
the victims of that tragedy. And that sort of balance is necessary,
as I say, not only here but in Turkey," stated Gordon. Possibly,
Armenians can be reproached with increased attention to the goings-on
in the US-Turkey relations, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that for many
years the United States has encouraged Turkey’s policy of denying the
Armenian Genocide. No doubt, Turkey plays a great role in the Near
East, she is a NATO member and an alleged strategic ally, without
which Â"neither withdrawal of American troops from Iraq nor struggle
against the Kurdish terrorists is possibleÂ". At first glance it
is true. But Washington ought to remember how many times Turkey has
turned down this or that project of the United States, referring to
Â"the Armenian lobby that has been forcing a wedge between the United
States and Turkey, between Turkey and ArmeniaÂ".
In a wider sense, nothing already depends on what Barack Obama will say
on April 24. Like a sly fox, Turkey has been trapped with two legs at
once. Ankara kept repeating that in 1915 there was only a deportation
and not genocide, but as a result she proved that for martyring 1.5
million Armenians responsibility is borne not only by Turkey but also
by Imperial Germany which so unsuccessfully drew the Ottoman Empire
into the World War I. Let us once again quote Ambassador Morgenthau:
"…For centuries the Turks have ill-treated their Armenians and all
their other subject peoples with inconceivable barbarity. Yet their
methods have always been crude, clumsy, and unscientific. They excelled
in beating out an Armenian’s brains with a club, and this unpleasant
illustration is a perfect indication of the rough and primitive methods
which they applied to the Armenian problem. They have understood the
uses of murder, but not of murder as a fine art. But the Armenian
proceedings of 1915 and 1916 evidenced an entirely new mentality. This
new conception was that of deportation. The Turks, in five hundred
years, had invented innumerable ways of physically torturing their
Christian subjects, yet never before had it occurred to their minds
to move them bodily from their homes, where they had lived for many
thousands of years, and send them hundreds of miles away into the
desert. Where did the Turks get this idea? Admiral Usedom, one of
the big German naval experts in Turkey, told me that the Germans had
suggested this deportation to the Turks. But the all-important point
is that this idea of deporting peoples en masse is, in modern times,
exclusively Germanic. Any one who reads the literature of Pan-Germany
constantly meets it…"
There are many archive documents, which confirm the participation
of Germany in the destruction of the Armenian population of the
Ottoman Empire. It is understandable that the Armenians, as always,
were of interest to the Great Powers, but it is necessary to note
that in 1915 the USA behaved more properly than Germany. "…In
order to curb Armenian espionage and to prevent new Armenian mass
uprisings, Enver Pasha, by putting the state of war (or emergency)
forward as a pretext, intends to close a large number of Armenian
schools, to suppress Armenian newspapers, to prohibit Armenian postal
correspondence and to resettle in Mesopotamia all those families from
the recently insurgent Armenian centres who are considered to be not
quite unobjectionable. He urgently requests us not to hinder him in
doing so… Of course, the Turkish measures will again cause great
excitement in the whole of the enemy world and will be used against
us. Also the measures will certainly mean great hardship for the
Armenian population. But I am of the opinion that we should moderate
the measures in their form, but not basically hinder them. Wangenheim,
German Ambassador to Istanbul, 31 May 1915".
There are many written materials about participation of Imperial
Germany in the massacre and deportation of the Armenians. Particularly,
there was published a collection of documents in 1995, called "The
Armenian Question and the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. Materials of
Imperial Germany MFA Political Archive." The events of 1915 were
a good rehearsal for the Holocaust, and Israel, that persistently
denies the Armenian Genocide, has to remember it always.
As for the German Bundestag Resolution "Commemoration Day of Armenians
on occasion of the 90th anniversary of the massacre of 24 April 1915 –
Germany should contribute to reconciliation of Turks and Armenians"
adopted on 15 June 2005, it says: "Over 1 million Armenians were killed
in the deportations and mass murders. Numerous independent historians,
parliaments, and international organizations have described the
expulsion and the extermination of the Armenians as genocide." Turkey
yet has no courage for such recognition. but Germany admitted her
guilt for the Holocaust, i.e. for the death of 6 million Jews…