WORLD VIEW: TURKEY AND ARMENIA SCHEDULE CONFLICTING WWI CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATIONS

Breitbart
March 5 2015

A major battle of World War I was the Battle of Gallipoli, which ran
from April 25, 1915, to January 9, 1916. Turkey has commemorated the
battle in the past on April 25.

According to Armenia, Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) committed a genocide
against Armenians, and the genocide began on April 24, 1915, when the
Young Turks government began deporting Armenians. Turkey denies that
there was a genocide. Armenia had scheduled a centennial commemoration
of the start of the deportations for next month on April 24.

Turkey responded last month by rescheduling its commemoration of the
Gallipoli campaign to April 24. Both countries have invited dozens
of international country leaders to their respective commemorations,
forcing every government to make a choice.

So far, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Britain’s Prime
Minister David Cameron have already accepted Turkey’s invitation;
meanwhile France’s President Francois Hollande plans to attend the
events in Armenia.

In this context, Armenia is canceling an American-mediated 2009
agreement, the “Zurich Protocols,” which would re-establish diplomatic
relations between the two countries, and re-open their mutual borders.

The agreement was signed in 2009, but neither country has ratified,
and now Armenia is canceling it once and for all.

A major reason why the Zurich Protocols were never ratified was
opposition by Azerbaijan. From 1988 to 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan
fought a war over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave of Azerbaijan, which
has a large Armenian population. Armenia won the war, and gained
control of about 15% of Azerbaijani territory, creating hundreds of
thousands of Azerbaijani refugees. That was the time when Azerbaijan
and Turkey closed their borders with Armenia and imposed a blockade,
closing off Armenia’s trade routes to Europe and Asia.

Today’s Zaman and Daily Sabah (Turkey) and Jamestown and News
(Azerbaijan)