ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TALK HAS TURKEY THREATENING TO EXPEL ARMENIANS
By Scott Peterson
Christian Science Monitor
/2010/0317/Armenian-genocide-talk-has-Turkey-threa tening-to-expel-Armenians
March 17 2010
After politicians in the US and Sweden recently labeled the deaths
of up to 1.5 million in 1915 an Armenian genocide, Turkey’s Prime
Minister Erdogan responded by threatening to expel about 100,000
Armenians living in Turkey.
Raising the stakes in Turkey’s rejection of the genocide label by US
and Swedish lawmakers for the mass deaths of Armenians a century ago,
Turkey says it might send home up to 100,000 Armenians currently
living in Turkey without citizenship.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, angry over the decision earlier
this month by a US congressional committee and by the Swedish
parliament to call the 1915 deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians a
"genocide," has said the issue could disrupt a nascent Turkey-Armenia
reconciliation process started last year.
Mr. Erdogan is now unlikely to attend an energy summit hosted by
Barack Obama in April, Hurriyet newspaper reported. Erdogan already
pulled out of a top-level meeting in Sweden, and Turkey withdrew
ambassadors from both Washington and Stockholm after the two votes.
The issue of deaths during the expulsion of Christian Armenians by
forces of the crumbling Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I
are sensitive in Turkey, which argues that killing took place on
both sides.
More broadly, NATO member and European Union candidate Turkey does
not want to be lumped with Nazi Germany, Cambodia, or Rwanda as
perpetrators of genocide in the 20th century.
"There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our country,"
Erdogan told the BBC Turkish service in London on Tuesday, according
to Reuters. "Only 70,000 of them are Turkish citizens, but we are
tolerating the remaining 100,000. If necessary, I may have to tell
these 100,000 to go back to their country because they are not my
citizens. I don’t have to keep them in my country."
Most of those Armenians live in Istanbul, where they have lived
since a 1988 earthquake in their own country and from which they send
remittances home.
They have been caught up in a political and emotional tug-of-war
over well-documented history that still rankles both sides. The US
and Swedish votes were a result of steady lobbying for years by the
powerful Armenian disapora, which has pushed for similar genocide
resolutions in other countries.
The latest votes knocked the Turkish government "off balance, so
there is a certain anger and concern that they need to deter upcoming
votes in [other] parliaments by making a strong stand against this,"
says Cengiz Candar, a columnist for Radikal newspaper and Hurriyet
Online in Istanbul.
"It seems a very careless statement," says Mr. Candar. He adds that
Erdogan’s comments may appeal to some nationalists in Turkey but have
also prompted a "very negative response" by many who normally support
the policies of the Islamist-rooted government.
"I don’t think that he will be implementing that — sending Armenians
working here back to Armenia," says Candar. "But it is a signal sent
to Armenia to deter them from supporting [such] genocide resolutions
out loud."
Erdogan was explicit on that point in the interview. "Armenia has an
important decision to make," he said. "It should free itself from its
attachments to the diaspora. Any country which cares for Armenia,
namely the US, France and Russia, should primarily help Armenia to
free itself from the influence of the diaspora."