TANER AKCAM: ACKNOWLEDGMENT BY US GOVERNMENT MIGHT FORCE TURKEY TO UNDERSTAND THAT BLACKMAILING AND THREATENING DO NOT OFFER SOLUTIONS FOR HISTORICAL PROBLEMS

PanARMENIAN.Net
May 11, 2010 – 18:42 AMT 13:42 GMT

United States is avoiding the official recognition of the Armenian
Genocide out of a similar misguided concern for national security in
the Middle East, California Courier Publisher Harut Sassounian cited
Turkish scholar Taner Akcam as saying.

"Morality is a very real issue, and for real politic to be successful
in the region; moral values, in this instance, the specific one of
acknowledging historic wrongdoings, must be integrated into a policy
of national security…. Failure to confront history honestly is one
of the major reasons for insecurity and instability in the region,"
Taner Akcam stated at his lecture in Los Angeles.

Akcam revealed that after World War I, Turkey’s leaders, including
Mustafa Kemal, acknowledged the Armenian massacres and favored the
prosecution of their perpetrators in order to gain support of the
Allies for the preservation of the territorial integrity of Ottoman
Turkey.

Akcam warned the United States that any policy "that ignores morality
and forgets the addressing of historic wrongdoings is doomed to fail
in the end." He suggested that Turkey should be made to understand
that "bullying and threatening others is not the behavior of an
international actor".

"Turkey cannot continue with the same repressive domestic policies
towards its own history and minorities under the guise of national
security and cannot threaten other countries in expressing their
thoughts on 1915, and at the same time pretend to be a member of
democratic countries in the world. An open, official acknowledgment by
the US government might force Turkey to understand that blackmailing
and threatening other states and suppressing and persecuting its own
intellectuals do not offer solutions for historical problems and for
security," the Turkish scholar concluded.