PM ERDOGAN’S ARMENIAN HOSTAGES
Semih Idiz
Hurriyet
March 18 2010
Turkey
Angered at the Armenian "genocide" resolutions passed by a U.S. House
of Representatives committee and the Swedish parliament, Turkey’s
prime minister says he is prepared to deport 100,000 Armenians living
illegally in Turkey if necessary.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the following remark
in an interview with the BBC’s Turkish Service during a visit to
London a few days ago:
"Look, there are 170,000 Armenians in my country; 70,000 are my
citizens. But we are not making a fuss over the remaining 100,000. So
what will I do tomorrow? If necessary, I am going to tell these
100,000, ‘come on, back to your country.’ I will do this. Why? Because
they are not my citizens. There is nothing that forces me to keep
them in my country."
Erdogan was referring to people who, due to the hardships in their
own country, have somehow made their way to Turkey and are working
here in order to be able to send their meager earnings back home to
sustain their families or loved ones.
This is not something that is alien to Turks, given that millions have
had to travel to Western countries over the past decades, leaving
home and hearth for the same reasons, many of them entering those
countries illegally as well.
Pressed on by his interviewer, Erdogan made a feeble attempt later
to backtrack by saying that he "was not referring to something that
would be happening today or tomorrow, but only if necessary."
So innocent Armenians are again potential victims of ugly politicking.
But Turkey is not the "hell-hole" in terms of human values that some
Europeans and Armenian activists like to make it out to be. Erdogan’s
remarks were condemned by a significant number of Turkish politicians,
columnists and other opinion makers as "inhumane," "unjust" and
"a violation of human rights."
Some columnists, such as Can Dundar of daily Milliyet, referred to a
new "tehcir," the term Turks use for the deportation of Armenians in
1915. Dundar indicated that Erdogan’s remarks amount to saying that
"100,000 Armenians are hostages, and if European parliaments don’t
stop pressuring Turkey over the 1915 events, we will make them suffer."
Ergun Babahan of daily Star went the whole way and wrote, "If Hitler
had been Turkish, we would also be denying the Holocaust today." He
added, in so many words, that that the spirit of Enver PaÅ~_a and his
"Ittihadists" was alive and kicking in today’s Turkey.
Erdogan’s remarks are unconscionable, of course, and represent a
slur to Turkey’s reputation. They are also seriously out of tune with
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s position on this issue.
Davutoglu was recently reported as telling the main opposition
Republican People’s Party, or CHP’s, abrasive and Armenian-baiting
deputy Canan Aritman that deporting illegal Armenians would be
counterproductive, and leave Turkey facing international charges of
"racism." Naturally, one wonders how Davutoglu feels after Erdogan’s
remarks.
This brings us to the opposition’s position. As far as the
ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, is concerned,
the reaction was predictable. Senior party members challenged Erdogan,
with apparent glee, to carry out his threat. "Why employ so many
illegal Armenians when there are unemployed Turks?" was the attitude
of Oktay Vural, a key name in the party.
As for the supposedly "social democratic" main opposition CHP, it
raised eyebrows again. Senior party members such as Aritman and Onur
Oymen did not miss the chance to insist it was the CHP that had first
suggested the Armenians should be deported (as if this is something
that merits a medal).
That was true, of course. The suggestion to deport all illegal
Armenians from Turkey came initially from another senior CHP
personality and a former ambassador to Washington, namely Å~^ukru
Elekdag.
It must also be mentioned here that Oymen had insulted and said hurtful
words in the recent past concerning Kurds also, when referring to
the Dersim massacres of 1937-38 perpetrated by Turkish forces against
rebellious Kurds.
It seems, however, that the CHP leadership is trying to dissociate
itself this time from the attitude of people such as Oymen, Elekdag
and Aritman – who once baited President Abdullah Gul by claiming he
had Armenian blood in him that he was keeping secret.
CHP spokesman Mustafa Ozyurek said in a statement that Erdogan’s
suggestion of deporting the Armenians was "wrong and discriminatory."
Much to the annoyance, no doubt, of the trio mentioned above, CHP
leader Deniz Baykal also came out against Erdogan’s suggestion.
To use people who came to work in Turkey in this way was "a violation
of human rights," Baykal said. Undoubtedly referring to members
of his own party, the CHP chief added that "individual opposition
deputies may have their own views, which are not binding in the end,"
but that it was "totally unacceptable" for the prime minister to come
out with such a proposition.
Whether Baykal really believes his own words, or simply did not want to
end up in the position of having to support a suggestion by Erdogan –
his political enemy – is another question. Whatever the case, the
CHP has to work overtime to not only prove its social democratic
credentials, but also its humanistic ones.
Finally, it must be said that Erdogan’s figure of 100,000 illegal
Armenians living and working in Turkey has not been corroborated by
the Ministry of Labor or the Interior Ministry. The figures mentioned
by Turkish and Armenian sources vary from 5,000 to 60,000.
But whatever the figure may be, there is not one reported incident of
trouble between Armenians working in Turkey and Turks. To the contrary,
all the reports in the Turkish press about these people have been
highly positive, indicating how Turks and Armenians can work, live
and love (yes, there are even marriages taking place) together.
But it makes no difference if the number of illegal Armenians is only
100. To turn innocent people, who have little to do with politics
and are merely trying to eke out a living in difficult circumstances,
into hostages for political considerations is morally reprehensible.
Even members of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, have
apparently understood this, and are now claiming, as Huseyin Celik
– one of the party’s deputy leaders – did, that the prime minister
"was only expressing Turkey’s good intentions" in saying what he said.
Another leading AKP member, Suat Kınıklıoglu, tried to repair the
damage by arguing unconvincingly in a written statement that Erdogan
was "merely trying to show how tolerant Turkey was toward Armenians
in Turkey,"
Those who are prepared to buy this are welcome to do so. But it is
clear from the reactions at home that the AKP can not fool everyone
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