TURKISH PM THREATENS TO EXPEL ARMENIAN WORKERS

The Swedish Wire
ish-pm-threatens-to-expel-armenian-workers
March 16 2010
Sweden

ANKARA (AFP) – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
threatened to expel thousands of illegal Armenians workers amid
tensions over allegations that Armenians were victims of genocide
under the Ottoman Empire.

Resolutions voted recently in the United States and Sweden to brand
the World War I killings as "genocide" undermined peace efforts with
Armenia, Erdogan said, according to excerpts from an interview with
the BBC Turkish service published on the BBC website.

"Those people make shows with those resolutions… And they harm
the Armenian people as well… And things become deadlocked," he was
quoted as saying during a visit to London.

Referring to about 100,000 Armenians working illegally in Turkey that
Ankara has so far tolerated, he said: "So what will I do tomorrow? If
necessary, I will tell them ‘come on, back to your country’… I’m
not obliged to keep them in my country.

"Those actions (on genocide resolutions) unfortunately have a negative
impact on our sincere attitudes," he said.

Forced to leave their impoverished country to earn a living, thousands
of Armenians, mostly women, have settled in Istanbul, working mainly
in manual jobs or as nannies and cleaning ladies.

Erdogan blamed the "genocide" resolutions on the influential Armenian
diaspora in the United States and Western Europe.

"We are extending our hand, but if our counterparts clench their hand
into a fist, there will be nothing we can do," he said.

Following Swiss-brokered talks to end decades of enmity, Turkey and
Armenia signed an accord in October to establish diplomatic ties and
open their border.

The process however has hit snags, with both countries accusing each
other of lacking true commitment to the deal.

The climate was further poisoned this month when the US House Foreign
Affairs Committee approved a non-binding resolution branding the
massacres of Armenians a genocide, and the Swedish parliament followed
suit last week.

Turkey recalled its ambassadors from both countries, warning that
bilateral ties and reconciliation efforts with Armenia would suffer.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin perished in a systematic
extermination campaign during World War I as the Ottoman Empire
fell apart.

Turkey counters that between 300,000 and 500,000 Armenians and at least
as many Turks were killed in what was a civil strife when Armenians
rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian
forces.

Parliaments in several other countries have also recognised the
killings as genocide in the past.