DAVUTOGLU SAYS ARTICLE 301 IS NOT IN USE , AND THE KARABAGH SETTLEMENT SHOULD NOT BE NAMED PRECONDITION
Tatevik Grigorian

Noyan Tapan
Jan 21, 2010

LONDON, JANUARY 21, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. On January 12 I
had the opportunity to attend a talk by Turkey’s Foreign Minister,
Ahmet Davutoglu. In a lecture at King’s college in London entitled
"Converging Interests of Turkey & the UK in an Enlarged EU & Beyond",
Dr. Davutoglu spoke about the special relationship between Turkey
and Britain which seems to thrive even more as Turkey became a
non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Dr. Davutoglu
stated that Turkey had taken it upon itself to act as a mediator in
restoring peace in the Middle East. Then he went on to discuss Turkey’s
potential membership in the European Union and thanked Britain for its
support. Dr. Davutoglu addressed a number of issues Turkey currently
faces in relation to its EU accession, among those the Cyprus issue
and the newly established relationship with Armenia. The minister
assured his audience that in the past seven years Turkey had greatly
improved its relations with all its neighbours; it had abolished the
visa regime with eight of its neighbours, it offered new proposals
for resolving the Cyprus question and it had signed protocols with
Armenia to normalise relations.

But I would like to tell you a thought that wouldn’t leave me
during the talk. Dr. Davutoglu remembered the years when he was a
professor at a university in Malaysia. Perhaps to draw an analogy
between his experience at the university and EU’s scepticism in
relation to Turkey’s accession to EU as the only Muslim country,
Dr. Davutoglu stated that when he first entered the class and saw how
multinational was the class where he was to teach, he could not believe
the textbooks he was to use to teach them. The philosophy textbooks
only mentioned Socrates, Plato, Hegel, Kant… not a single Indian
or Chinese name. The same story for history textbooks. Dr. Davutoglu
expressed his disappointment and anger at the Eurocentric approach
and simply could not comprehend how it could be that in a country
where these people had their own history, their own legacy, none of
it was mentioned in the textbooks. I could not help but smile as I
remembered the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire that never get
mentioned in Turkish textbooks.

While in me this personal encounter by Dr. Davutoglu left a very bitter
smile, I guess the purpose of sharing this with us was to suggest that
the times of European domination were over and Europe should not be
scared of welcoming a country that doesn’t have Christian background;
after all EU was not a Christian institution.

At the end of the lecture very limited time was left for the question
and answer session. Only three questions managed to be voiced, among
them two by me. My first question was whether the Turkish Parliament
was prepared to ratify the protocols signed with Armenia without any
preconditions and thus honour the original agreement; in my second
question I asked Dr. Davutoglu whether he believed that Turkey was
ready to join the EU and uphold the same standard of human rights,
such as the right to freedom of expression, when Article 301 of the
Turkish Penal Code simply made this impossible. Certain topics were
still taboo in Turkey and even the nobel prize author Orhan Pamuk
got himself in trouble for vaguely mentioning the Armenian Genocide
in an interview. Would Turkey abolish Article 301?

Before answering my questions Dr. Davutoglu laughed nervously and moved
on to answering them. Beginning with the second question first, the
minister gently mocked me by saying that I should update my knowledge
as I was unaware that Article 301 was no longer in use since three
years ago and that Orhan Pamuk’s case was never finalised.

Implying that Article 301 had been abolished, the minister brushed
off the question, moving on to the other.

In fact he was right to state that Orhan Pamuk’s case was dropped in
the end, it is not true that Article 301 has been abolished. It is
in use, but with amendments since April 30, 2008, which lower the
maximum sentence from three years imprisonment to two; require the
approval of the Minister of Justice, replace insulting Turkishness
with Turkish nation, and other minor changes. But my question was
not whether Aritcle 301 was amended or whether it was no longer as
harsh as it used to be. I asked directly, whether Turkey would ever
abolish it in its entirety. It’s the fact remains that Article 301
continues to be included in the Turkish Penal Code, yet the Minister
suggested that it didn’t.

In response to my first question, Dr. Davutoglu emphasised that what
Armenia called preconditions were not in fact preconditions and should
not be viewed that way. He explained that in order for peace to be
sustainable in South Caucasus, it was simply impossible to improve
relations with Armenia before Armenia returned righteously Azeri
land to Azerbaijans’. He stated that 20% of Azeri land was under
Armenian military control so how could there be talks of normalised
relations if this was still the case? How could he possibly persuade
his parliament members in the Parliament to ratify the protocols
under these conditions?

One wonders why then before signing the protocols Turkey did not voice
the settlement of the Karabagh issue as a precondition for ratifying
the protocols later. Dr. Davutoglu concluded his speech saying that
he dreamt that one day one could safely drive all the way from Baku
through Karabagh, Yerevan, Nakhichevan, down to Kars. He assured the
audience that one day this would happen only not under the present
conditions. He concluded:" Let’s not call these preconditions".