The Gazette (Montreal)
March 18, 2010 Thursday
Final Edition
Turkey threatens to expel 100,000 Armenians; ‘They are not my
citizens’; PM Warning comes as Sweden and U.S. brand Ottoman-era
killings as genocide
IBON VILLELABEITIA, Reuters
ANKARA
Turkey’s prime minister has threatened to expel thousands of illegal
Armenian immigrants after U.S. and Swedish lawmakers passed votes
branding First World War-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as
genocide.
Muslim Turkey, a NATO member and candidate to join the European Union,
recalled its ambassadors to Washington and Stockholm this month after
the non-binding votes and warned that they could hurt a fragile effort
to reconcile with Christian Armenia after a century of hostility.
Asked about the votes in an interview with the BBC Turkish service
that was broadcast late Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan said: "There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our
country. 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."
Commentators have said the U.S. vote could affect Washington’s use of
the Incirlik Air base in southeast Turkey, which provides vital
logistical support for U.S. troops going to and from Iraq.
Erdogan’s comments met with a stern reaction from Armenia.
"This kind of political statement does not help improve relations
between the two states," Prime Minister Tigran Sarksyan said.
"I agree with the assessment that when the Turkish prime minister
allows himself to make such statements, the events of 1915 immediately
return to our memory," he added.
Thousands of illegal Armenian immigrants, mostly women from the
impoverished countryside, work as cleaning ladies and in other
low-skill jobs in Istanbul, where many settled after an earthquake in
their homeland in 1988.
The exact number of Armenian immigrants in Turkey is unknown. But
Turkish-Armenian groups say Turkish politicians inflate the numbers of
illegal workers and threaten expulsions whenever tensions escalate
between Ankara and Yerevan.
Erdogan said Armenian immigrants had been allowed to work in Turkey as
a "display of our peaceful approach, but we have to get something in
return."