OPPOSITION REPRESENTATIVE EXPOUNDS ON TURKISH-ARMENIAN RELATIONS

Hurriyet Daily News

‘The AKP began its Armenia initiative with an inappropriate partner
under inappropriate circumstances,’ said Koruturk.

Turkey’s main opposition’s foreign policy specialist and former
Ambassador Osman Koruturk has criticized the government’s policies
toward Armenia while reiterating his party’s election promises
following his visits to the religious leaders of Turkey’s Armenian,
Greek, Syriac and Jewish minorities this week.

“The painful [events of 1915] were reciprocal; we need to talk tete a
tete [with the Armenians.] The diaspora claims they were the only ones
to suffer; the pain of the Muslim Turks needs to also be recognized.

We can move forward if we dress our wounds and leave the past to
historians. Even the Germans and Jews have managed to overcome all
this. Why shouldn’t we?” asked Koruturk from the Republican People’s
Party, or CHP. He added that they wanted good relations with Turkey’s
neighbors and signaled the possibility of reinvigorating the issue
of Turkey’s closed border with Armenia.

Koruturk also said significant mistakes were committed in regards
to the Interior Ministry’s decision to appoint Aram AteÅ~_yan as the
acting deputy patriarch of the Armenian church. The CHP representative
said the spirit of the Lausanne Treaty should have been followed in
this regard.

Patriarch Mesrop II was diagnosed with “frontal demans” in 2007
and is no longer capable of fulfilling his duties due to health
reasons. The Interior Ministry then chose to appoint AteÅ~_yan as
his deputy despite protests from within the Armenian community.

“The AKP began its Armenia initiative with an inappropriate partner
under inappropriate circumstances. Consider the fact that anyone who
says there was no genocide gets punished in Switzerland, which is
the mediating country,” said Koruturk, who also accused the AKP of
failing in its Kurdish Initiative as well.

“The AKP failed to act in coordination. Azerbaijan was not kept
sufficiently informed … The Karabagh problem requires many years to
be resolved, just like the Cyprus problem. When they received negative
reactions from Azerbaijan, the AKP took a wrong turn and pushed forth
the issue of Karabagh, [as a result of which] the process lost its
momentum. If things were coordinated with Azerbaijan and [Azerbaijan]
was kept sufficiently informed, all this would not have happened,”
said Koruturk, referring to the protocols initialized in 2009 between
Turkey and Armenia to normalize relations.

Koruturk said if Turkey wants to be a powerful player in the region,
then it must develop consistent dialogue with its neighbors. The CHP
representative noted that Armenia conducts a significant portion of
its trade through neighboring Iran and Georgia, and added that Turkey
is still Armenia’s second largest export market despite the closed
borders. All the benefit from this trade, however, go to Iran and
Georgia, said Koruturk.

“We see everyone as equal Turkish citizens. The distance [of minority
communities] toward the CHP must be emanating from certain problems
that occurred during the single-party period,” said Koruturk, who
also urged minority communities to become more engaged in politics.

Koruturk also reiterated CHP’s election promises, including removing
the 10 percent election threshold that prevents smaller parties from
entering the parliament and the foundation of a special commission
to elucidate unresolved political murders. Koruturk also promised to
pave the way for people to be able to learn in their mother tongues,
as well as recognition of representation rights for Kurds. Koruturk
further claimed that the infamous Diyarbakır Prison, the site of
gruesome torture sessions that allegedly took place during Turkey’s
1980 coup, was going to be turned into a Human Rights Museum if the
CHP came to power.