US LEADERS WOULD RATHER KEEP TURKEY HAPPY THAN RECOGNIZE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Quartz
April 10 2015

Written by Jake Flanagin @jakeflanagin

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian
genocide–when Ottoman authorities arrested more than 200 prominent
ethnic Armenians living in Constantinople in 1915. Also known as
the Armenian Holocaust, the Medz Yeghern (“Great Crime” in Armenian)
refers to the systemic extermination and mass deportation of ethnic
Armenians living within the Ottoman Empire during and after World War
I. Ultimately, more than 1.5 million were killed, and millions more
were displaced from their ancestral homelands in Anatolia. Each year,
on Apr. 24, Armenians all over the world honor the dead, along with
the governments of more than 20 nations, including Canada, Sweden,
Italy, France, Argentina, and Russia, to name a few.

The United States of America–home to the second-largest Armenian
community outside of Armenia–does not.

On Mar. 18, 2015, four US congressmen–representatives Robert Dold
of Illinois, Adam Schiff of California, David Valadao of California,
and Frank Pallone of New Jersey–introduced a bipartisan resolution
to formally recognize the Armenian genocide at the federal level.

According to a press release, the Armenian Truth and Justice Resolution
“calls upon the administration to work toward equitable, constructive
and durable Armenian-Turkish relations based upon the Republic of
Turkey’s full acknowledgement of the facts and ongoing consequences
of the Armenian Genocide.”

That last part is important. If you’re wondering what’s kept the US
government from recognizing the Armenian genocide all these years,
the answer is simple: the Republic of Turkey. The successor state
to the Ottoman Empire has adamantly denied the Armenian genocide
for decades–preferring to characterize the violence as part of the
broader chaos that broke out in the wake of World War I. Historians
generally agree that Turkey’s Armenians were targeted for supposedly
cooperating with the Russians during the war. Others, however, point
out that interethnic animosity between Turks and Armenians stretches
back hundreds of years.

In 2014, members of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
adopted a resolution to “remember and observe the the anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide on Apr. 24.” Turkey’s government objected
strongly, claiming the verbiage (referring to the conflict as a
“genocide,” to be precise) “distorts history and law.”

“We condemn those who led this prejudiced initiative,” the Turkish
foreign ministry wrote in a statement.

In January 2015, sitting Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan called
for an “impartial board of historians” to review the matter. “If
the results actually reveal that we have committed a crime, if we
have a price to pay, then as Turkey we would assess it and take the
required steps,” he told Turkish state media, according to Agence
France-Presse. “If [the Armenians] are really sincere in this matter,
let us give it to the historians. Let the historians deal with the
matter. We have opened our archive and presented more than a million
documents,” he added. “If Armenia also has an archive, then they
should open it too … Then we can sit and talk as politicians.”

Armenian leaders have refused any such arrangement, believing–along
with most of the world–the genocide to be a fact of history. The
concern therefore is that any supposed “impartial review” would
actually serve as an opportunity for the Turkish government to its
revisionisms into mainstream thought. Yerevan, rightfully so, is
not willing to compromise the truths of what is probably the most
definitive event in modern Armenian history.

And yet, despite what appears to be blatant doublespeak on the part of
Turkish lawmakers, the US government remains steadfastly silent on the
issue. At the same time, it’s not exactly difficult to determine why.

Given the fraught nature of US operations in the Middle East today,
it’s likely the nominal recognition of the Armenian genocide isn’t
a top priority for the White House or state department–Turkey being
a key regional ally.

These political considerations doesn’t cut it with everyone in
Washington, however.

“But we cant’t play politics with something this important,” Dold
insisted to Quartz. “This is about recognizing right versus wrong.”

For Dold, it’s also an issue that hits close to home–he represents
Illinois’s tenth congressional district, home to a sizable community
of Armenian diaspora. “I have constituents whose family members were
lost in the genocide,” he explains.

But, for Dold, the need for formal, US recognition of the genocide goes
far beyond even what it would mean to Armenian Americans. “It’s not
just an obligation to the Armenians, it’s an obligation to mankind,”
he says. The purpose of federal recognition is to create an official
framework to prevent such atrocities from reoccurring. He notes an
infamous quote attributed to Adolf Hitler, when briefing his generals
before the 1939 invasion of Poland: “Who, after all, speaks today of
the annihilation of the Armenians?”

“If we really want to believe ‘never again,'” Dold says, recalling the
popular slogan for Holocaust remembrance, “We first have to recognize
what’s gone on.”

From: A. Papazian