YEREVAN SLAMS TURKEY’S THREAT TO KICK OUT ARMENIANS
By Marc Champion
Wall Street Journal
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March 18 2010
ISTANBUL–Armenia on Wednesday condemned a threat by Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to expel Armenians who work in his
country without papers, as tensions between the two neighbors rise
over a bloody history and wavering efforts to reopen their border.
Mr. Erdogan told the BBC’s Turkish language service late Tuesday
that of some 170,000 ethnic Armenians working in Turkey, only 70,000
were Turkish citizens. "We are turning a blind eye to the remaining
100,000…Tomorrow, I may tell these 100,000 to go back to their
country, if it becomes necessary, because they are not my citizens. I
don’t have to keep them in my country," he said.
Allowing the Armenians to work in Turkey without papers was a "display
of our peaceful approach, but we have to get something in return," Mr.
Erdogan said.
Tuesday’s threat comes as Turkey seeks to dissuade the full U.S.
Congress from recognizing as genocide the slaughter of up to 1.5
million Armenians in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. It also
comes as Armenia has been threatening to pull out of a deal that
would reopen its border with Turkey and set up a joint historical
commission to examine the 1915 massacres, among other issues.
"These kinds of political statements do not help to improve relations
between our two states," Armenia Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan told
the county’s parliament Wednesday, according to agency reports. "When
the Turkish prime minister allows himself to make such statements it
immediately for us brings up memories of the events of 1915."
Turkey has reacted angrily to recent resolutions in the U.S. House
Foreign Affairs Committee and the Swedish parliament, which recognized
the 1915 atrocities as genocide. Ankara withdrew its ambassadors from
the two countries. Turkey maintains that the 1915 death tolls are
exaggerated and do not constitute genocide because they took place
in the context of civil war in which hundreds of thousands of Turks
also died. Most Western historians believe the killings of ethnic
Armenians did constitute genocide.
On Tuesday, Mr. Erdogan blamed the Armenian diaspora–often the
families of those who fled or were killed in 1915–for driving the
resolutions. He called on governments in the U.S. and elsewhere not
to be swayed.
On Wednesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon told
reporters the Foreign Affairs Committee resolution had damaged
relations with Turkey, but that a full vote on the House floor
remained possible, despite White House opposition. "Congress is an
independent body, and they are going to do what they decide to do,"
Mr. Gordon told reporters, according to the Associated Press.
This is not the first time that Mr. Erdogan and other Turkish officials
have hinted they could take action against the thousands of Armenians
who do mostly menial labor in Turkey without work visas.
Officials from the prime minister’s ruling Justice and Development
party were quick to say Wednesday that no expulsion is imminent.
Still, Mr. Erdogan’s sharp comments come in the midst of a tense game
of brinksmanship between Armenia, Turkey and the U.S. administration.
Turkish officials have expressed frustration at the Obama
administration’s failure to lobby more strongly against the House
Foreign Affairs Committee vote, which passed by just 23 votes to 22,
speculating that it was done to pressure Ankara into ratifying the
deal with Armenia.
The U.S., meanwhile, has done little to hide its frustration with the
reluctance of NATO member Turkey–currently a member of the 15-nation
United Nations Security Council–to back tougher international action
against Iran’s nuclear fuel program. Iran says its nuclear program
is purely for civilian purposes.
Mr. Erdogan again questioned the urgency of tackling Iran’s nuclear
program in the BBC interview. Noting that U.N. nuclear inspectors
have found no proof that Iran is building a bomb, Mr. Erdogan said:
"These are all rumors."
"With respect to Iran, while the international community has sought
to present a single, coordinated message to Iran’s government, Turkey
has at times sounded a different note," Mr. Gordon was due to say
in a speech to the Brookings Instutution, a Washington think tank,
the AP reported.
Write to Marc Champion at [email protected]