ARMENIAN PM CONDEMNS TURKEY’S THREAT TO DEPORT 100,000 ARMENIANS

RTT News
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March 18 2010

Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian on Wednesday condemned his
Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan for threatening to deport
some 100,000 Armenians living in Turkey without citizenship, stating
that such threats would harm relations between the two countries.

"These kinds of political statements do not help to improve relations
between our two states," Sarkisian said. "When the Turkish prime
minister allows himself to make such statements it immediately for
us brings up memories of the events of 1915."

Sarkisian made the remarks while addressing the country’s parliament
on Wednesday, just hours after Erdogan said in an interview with the
BBC Turkish service he might ask some 100,000 Armenians living in
Turkey without proper documents to leave the country.

"There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our country," Erdogan
said. "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 the 170,000 Armenians living in Turkey have settled in
Istanbul and are currently sending remittances home from there. Most
of them moved to Turkey after a deadly earthquake devastated their
impoverished home country in 1998.

Erdogan’s comments on Wednesday came a couple of weeks after a
US Congressional committee approved a resolution that described
the massacre of Armenians by Turkish forces during World War I as
genocide, ignoring warnings from Turkey that ties between the two
countries would be hurt if the measure was adopted.

The resolution was narrowly approved by the House Foreign Affairs
Committee on 4th March in a 23 to 22 vote. The House Resolution 252
urges U.S. President Barack Obama to ensure that his administration’s
future foreign policies reflects an understanding of the Armenian
"genocide."

Soon after the endorsement of the resolution by the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, Turkey recalled its ambassador from Washington for
consultations on the issue. Ankara also said in a statement that it
was condemning "this resolution which accuses the Turkish nation of
a crime it has not committed".

The resolution will now be put to vote in the full House. US officials
have indicated that the resolution could be put to vote in the full
house despite opposition from the Obama administration, which has
urged lawmakers to keep the measure from a vote in the full U.S.

House.

"Congress is an independent body, and they are going to do what
they decide to do," Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon told
reporters on Wednesday ahead of speech at the Brookings Institute. He
also denied reports that the Obama administration had reached a
deal with Democratic congressional leaders to block the resolution,
contradicting earlier claims by the State Department.

It, however, was not the first time that a similar resolution on the
issue has passed the committee stage. The Foreign Affairs Committee
approved a similar genocide measure in 2007, but was shelved ahead
of a House vote following intensive pressure from the George W Bush
administration.

Following the approval of the resolution by the US House Foreign
Affairs Committee, the Swedish parliament also followed suit by
recognizing the Armenian Genocide by Turkish forces in 1915 in a 131
to 130 ballot held on 11th March. Turkey reacted by canceling the
planned visit of Prime Minister Erdogan to Sweden and by recalling
its ambassador to that European country.

Despite Turkey’s anger at the US and Swedish move, Armenia, welcomed
the endorsement of the resolutions, and described them as an important
step towards the prevention of crimes against humanity.

Turkey denies the occurrence of any genocide of Armenians during
World War I and insists that those killed were victims in the chaotic
collapse of the Ottoman empire, prior to the birth of modern Turkey
in 1923.

Erdogan on Wednesday criticized the resolutions in the US and
Sweden that described the killings of Armenians in Ottoman Empire as
"genocide," and said that those actions "unfortunately have a negative
impact on our sincere attitudes." He added that such resolutions
"harm the Armenian people as well… and things become deadlocked".

Warning that the resolutions could disrupt the Turkey-Armenia
reconciliation process launched last year, Erdogan said the Armenian
immigrants were allowed to live and work in Turkey as a "display of
our peaceful approach, but we have to get something in return."

Turkey and Armenia have not had any diplomatic or economic relations
after Armenia declared its independence in 1991. In addition, Turkey
also closed its borders with Armenia in 1993 as a token of support
for Azerbaijan, which has a territorial conflict with Armenia.

The developments come almost a year after Turkey and Armenia announced
last April of having reached a historic deal that would normalize
relations between the two sides. Though the deal has strong backing of
the international community, it is currently on the brink of collapse
as both Turkey and Armenia are yet to ratify the agreement.

One of the hurdles to Turkey’s ratification of the agreement sprung
up recently after Armenia’s Constitutional Court ruled on 12th
January that the deal with Turkey should not breach the country’s
Independence Declaration, which states that the Republic of Armenia
"stands in support of the task of achieving international recognition
of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia."

Turkey objected to the Armenian Constitutional Court ruling, insisting
that the ruling was based on "preconditions and restrictive findings"
that undermine the "fundamental objectives" of the protocols. Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the court ruling as
"unacceptable" and has said it could undermine the reconciliation
efforts between the two countries.

Turkey’s parliament initially delayed ratifying the protocols, as it
linked the establishment of diplomatic relations to negotiations on
the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Armenian troops currently occupy the
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh after they helped Armenian separatists to
seize control of the enclave from Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey,
in the early 1990s.

Turkey demands the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave conflict be resolved
through international meditations and has kept the withdrawal of
Armenian forces from the enclave as a condition for ratifying the
agreement.