HOW BARACK OBAMA REFRAINED FROM USING THE ‘G’ WORD IN TURKEY
Robert Tait

The Guardian
Tuesday 7 April 2009

Even before he took office, Turks were anxious to hear Barack Obama’s
attitude towards the Armenians who died during the last days of the
Ottoman empire. Armenians in the US say that up to 1.5 million of their
ethnic kin were killed by Ottoman forces in a genocide plotted by the
then Turkish leadership. Turkey has said the numbers are exaggerated
and the deaths not deliberate genocide.

During last year’s presidential election campaign, Obama had no
doubt. "The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion
or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by
an overwhelming body of historical evidence."

Obama, with Turkey’s president Abdullah Gul and before parliament
yesterday, refrained from using what the Turkish media call "the
g word". It was not because his views had changed, he said, but
because of ongoing talks between Turkey and Armenia, they no longer
matter. "What I want to do now is not focus on my views but on the
views of the Turkish and Armenian people," he said.