Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 14 2010

Turkey blames everybody but itself

AMANDA PAUL a.paul@todayszaman.com Columnists

If there was an award for passing the buck and blaming others, Turkey
would surely be near the top of the nominee list. It really never
ceases to amaze just how often Turkey does this. These days, US
President Barack Obama has been on the receiving end of Turkey’s
wrath, with Ankara accusing Washington of having no strategic vision
and of failing to take the necessary steps to prevent the approval of
the Armenian `genocide’ resolution by the US House Foreign Relations
Committee last week. I sometimes wonder who is the superpower, the US
or Turkey? In any case, between now and April 24, when Obama delivers
his annual message, Turkey will be obsessed. It is really sad that we
have to witness this scene over and over again. Turkey’s criticism has
been ever harsher this year, and Ankara seems to be expecting Obama to
resolve this issue once and for all. If he does not, well, as Foreign
Minister DavutoÄ?lu has threatened, strategic ties may go adrift —
meaning that Turkey will develop even closer ties with the Russians,
Iranians, Africans, South Americans, etc., with Turkey possibly
becoming an increasingly unreliable partner for the West. With the
ambassador already recalled and State Minister Zafer Ã?aÄ?layan’s visit
cancelled, Turkey is really piling on the pressure. Ã?aÄ?layan’s visit
was supposed to develop further economic ties with the US under a
model partnership framework suggested by Obama. With Prime Minister
ErdoÄ?an due to visit Washington in April, what will happen next is
anybody’s guess, but I would expect once we get into May the rocky sea
will calm down again.
I don’t believe Obama can make the genocide issue disappear as Turkey
requests. In fact, the genocide issue is not going to go away in the
US or anywhere else, with the Swedish parliament narrowly approving a
resolution last Thursday recognizing the 1915 mass killing of
Armenians in Turkey as genocide and prompting the Turkish government
to recall its ambassador there, too, in protest. While Foreign
Minister Carl Bildt said he regretted the decision because it would
serve as another blow to Turkey’s reconciliation with Armenia, the
fact is that Turkey could have moved the process forward months ago
but preferred not to. So now they blame the US, the Swedes and the
Armenians. In fact, anybody but themselves. If Turkey believed
reconciliation with Armenia would make the genocide issue go away,
then they were and are fooling themselves. As long as there is an
Armenian diaspora on this planet, they will continue to push
everywhere they can for recognition of the genocide, no matter how
many historic commissions or rapprochements there are. The genocide
issue is their life’s cause.

In addition, the Jan. 12 ruling by the Armenian Constitutional Court
resulted in Turkey questioning whether Armenia remains committed to
their promise to ratify the two protocols for the normalization of
relations with Turkey. Perhaps Ankara would do well to take a good
look in the mirror. It is Turkey more than any other entity that is
responsible for the difficulty in the current reconciliation. Turkey
has crippled the process by insisting on a parallel process on the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is clearly not going to happen any
time soon. And here again Turkey blames Armenia for the lack of
progress when in fact Armenia is no more to blame than Azerbaijan.

Turkey is well aware that the process is in danger of failing and is
looking everywhere it can to find others to blame. Probably it would
please Ankara no end if Armenia were to announce that it was fed up
with Turkey’s imposed Karabakh preconditions and withdraw its
signature from the protocols — as they have threatened to do. This
would give Turkey the perfect scapegoat for the failure of the
process. If I were sitting in Yerevan, I would do precisely the
opposite. I would not withdraw the signature; rather, I would take the
initiative and have the protocols ratified in the Armenian parliament
as soon as possible.

And of course the blame game is not simply limited to this issue; it
is alive and kicking on many others, too. On Cyprus Turkey always
claims to be driving forward a solution and continues to deny any
wrongdoing in the past rather continuing to state that its role in the
Cyprus conflict was to bring peace to the island and placing the blame
elsewhere for the continued division. It is the same when it comes to
the membership negotiations with the EU. Blame for the stagnation of
the talks always lies at the feet of the EU. But this approach should
come as no big surprise given the fact that many Turks are simply
unable to accept or acknowledged that their country, and the Ottoman
Empire before it, has ever behaved in a way that was less than
perfect. They are unable to deal with the past and have trouble
acknowledging that sometimes Turkey does make mistakes. Rather they
prefer to point the finger at others.