SABAH: ARMENIA NOT TO RENOUNCE INTERNATIONAL GENOCIDE RECOGNITION PROCESS

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
25.01.2010 19:50 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The problems in Armenian-Turkish normalization
process come to show that the year 2010 will mark a crisis in
U.S.-Turkish dialogue from the viewpoint of U.S. Congress’ position
on Armenian Genocide resolution , Turkish Sabah newspaper says in
an article.

The author of the publication disapproves official Ankara’s statement
on RA Constitutional Court’s recent decision over Armenia-Turkey
Protocols.

"It is very naive to think that Armenia will renounce the international
genocide recognition process without proposing Armenian Genocide
issue as a precondition. Yerevan is making certain steps towards
the ratification of Protocols while Ankara has taken an evasive
stance. Crisis in U.S.-Turkey relations prior to April 24 is
inevitable, hence Turkish Government should be prepared for
that. The Armenian lobby is looking forward to such moment while
Turkey contributes to that by its inaction. Armenians in United States
consider the current year a favorable period for passing a resolution,
given the European lobby’s negative attitude to Turkey. Not receiving
Ankara’s support over the issue, the U.S. President will find himself
in a very complicated situation," the newspaper writes.

The Protocols aimed at normalization of bilateral ties and opening of
the border between Armenia and Turkey were signed in Zurich by Armenian
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet
Davutoglu on October 10, 2009, after a series of diplomatic talks
held through Swiss mediation.

On January 12, 2010, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of
Armenia found the protocols conformable to the country’s Organic Law.

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic
destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during
and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres, and
deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to
lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths
reaching 1.5 million.

The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be
April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250
Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.

Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes
and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of
food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were
indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse
commonplace. The Armenian Genocide is the second most-studied case
of genocide after the Holocaust.

The Republic of Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire,
denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events. In
recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as
genocide.

To date, twenty countries and 44 U.S. states have officially recognized
the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars
and historians accept this view. The Armenian Genocide has been also
recognized by influential media including The New York Times, BBC,
The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the
Genocide survivors.

The Armenian lobby of United States seeks to achieve the public
condemnation of Turkey for the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Launched in
1980, the organization’s persistent lobbying campaign took permanent
character. The principle lying behind such resolution receives White
House and U.S. State Department’s support almost every year, but is
never approved considering United States interests.