INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: SECOND BREATH
By Ivan Gharibyan
news.am
March 10 2010
Armenia
On the threshold of the 95th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
in Ottoman Turkey, official Ankara is receiving more and more new
signals that the process of international recognition of the Armenian
Genocide is going on.
No sooner had Turkey digested the approval of an Armenian Genocide
resolution by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs than it
received bad news from Spain and Sweden. Recently the Parliament of
Catalonia unanimously recognized the Armenian Genocide, which may
cause the Parliament of Spain to approve a similar decision as well.
The official statements that it is only the position of Catalonia
are not so important. Of importance is that the process got under way.
Swedish political parties intend to hold a hearing of the issue.
Everything suggests the following: no matter how hard Turkey tries to
blackmail the international community by threatening to thwart the
Armenia-Turkey normalization process should any country define the
1915 events as genocide, the process is going on. This fact can easily
be explained, but Ankara is unwilling to understand elementary things.
No doubt, Turkey’s present problems are the result of its own policy.
Kid-glove Turkish diplomacy is doing its best to link the international
recognition of the Armenian Genocide to the Armenian-Turkish
reconciliation – two processes that have nothing in common. The
Turkish authorities’ policy has for many years been "fed" by different
U.S. administrations, which have repeatedly prevented the U.S. Congress
from approving relevant resolutions. At present, the U.S. Secretary
of State, who has overtly disowned her own position and stood up for
Ankara, is trying to frighten everyone with a possible failure of the
Armenian-Turkish normalization process. Washington even pretends to
be unaware of the detrimental effects of its position and attempts
to anticipate the development of Armenian-Turkish dialogue.
The United States is supposed to realize that Turkey is responsible
for the present situation in the region, as it interfered in the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and imposed a blockade on Armenia. The U.S.
should also be aware that making Turkey realize the need to stop
cashing in on the Genocide denial policy would enable Armenia and
Turkey to establish normal relations in the shortest space of time.
But the United States continues supporting Turkey’s policy thereby
torpedoing the Armenian-Turkish normalization process, while it claims
it is strongly for a success in this process.
The latest developments have shown this, as well as Armenia’s new
foreign policy after Serzh Sargsyan was elected president, has not
been very detrimental to the process of international recognition
of the Armenian Genocide. In any case, although a number of foreign
newspapers published articles about the "soccer diplomacy’s" negative
effects on the process, it remains topical, and evidence thereof is
the latest decision by the Parliament of Catalonia and, most likely,
a positive result of hearings at the Swedish Parliament.
Turkey, in turn, has to either put up with the inevitability of
international recognition of the Armenian Genocide or the country’s
all attempts to reform its society and turn into a democratic state
will be sacrificed to its own stereotyped thinking.