OBAMA STIRS ARMENIAN ‘CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM’ ON ANKARA VISIT

Agence France Presse
April 6, 2009 Monday 7:09 PM GMT

US President Barack Obama’s comments during his Ankara visit on
Monday on the status of Turkish-Armenian relations give rise to
"cautious optimism," a prominent Armenian activist said.

"He avoided use of the ‘G’ word in front of his hosts," said American
Armenian filmmaker and journalist Carla Garapedian, a campaigner for
the recognition of the killings of Ottoman Armenians nine decades
ago as genocide.

"You can say he has been very clever diplomatically. He went to Turkey
to improve relations with Turkey," said Garapedian, who was in Nicosia
for a screening of her documentary, "Screamers," on the mass killings.

"If he had said the ‘G’ word in front of (Turkey’s President Abdullah)
Gul and the (Turkish) parliament, he would have embarrassed them,"
she told AFP.

But Garapedian stressed Obama had referred to the fate of the Native
Americans, opening the way to a possible face-saving formula for Ankara
to drop its categoric refusal to recognise the killings as a genocide.

"He was trying to help them (Turkey) save face by raising this
issue. It was very interesting … My interpretation is that one can
be cautiously optimistic that he is not going to backtrack on his
position," she said.

"The fact that Obama mentioned the Native Americans shows a certain
courage," Garapedian said. "That is a clear signal that Americans
too have a legacy of genocide in our history."

Obama signalled he had not changed his view that the killings of
hundreds of thousands of Armenians amounted to genocide but insisted
that reconciliation between the two neighbours was of more immediate
importance.

"I want to focus not on my views right now, but on the views of the
Turkish and Armenian people. If they can move forward… the entire
world should encourage them," said Obama at a joint press conference
with Gul.

During his election campaign, Obama pledged to his American Armenian
supporters to recognise the World War I killings as genocide. Ankara
has warned Washington such a move could hit bilateral ties and derail
any reconciliation.

Yerevan and the Armenians in diaspora say that up to 1.5 million of
their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire
fell apart, a stand supported by several countries.

Turkey rejects the genocide term and argues that 300,000-500,000
Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when
Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided
with invading Russian troops.