TURKEY’S ETHNIC ARMENIANS WARY ABOUT FUTURE

EurasiaNet.org
April 14 2015

April 14, 2015 – 2:27pm, by Dorian Jones

The upcoming 100th anniversary of the Medz Yeghern, or the “Great
Catastrophe,” is highlighting the mixed feelings that Turkey’s tiny
ethnic Armenian minority has for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s
administration.

On April 24, Armenians around the world will mark the World-War-I-era
deaths of hundreds of thousands ethnic Armenians in Ottoman-era
Turkey. It is a tragedy that for many historians and analysts
constitutes an act of genocide.

Turkey denies the claim of genocide. On April 12, Ankara withdrew its
ambassador from the Vatican after Pope Francis termed the massacre
“the first genocide of the 20th century.”

Ankara’s official position is that the number of reported deaths is
exaggerated and that the victims died during a wartime attempt to
put down a domestic uprising.

Until recently, the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP)
seemed increasingly open to public acknowledgement of the massacre.

For example, for the past five years at Taksim Square, in the heart
of Istanbul, hundreds of ethnic Armenians and Turks held an annual
vigil on April 24 to commemorate the slayings.

“The state’s perception of 1915, of Armenians, has changed in
a positive way from before,” claimed Markar Esaian, a prominent
Turkish-Armenian columnist for the pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper.

“There is an unacknowledged fact that for the last 90 years, on April
24 we were not able to commemorate the people we lost in 1915. We
could not do commemoration ceremonies in the churches or visit the
cemeteries because it was very dangerous. It was not officially banned,
but if we had done it, it would have been seriously dangerous for
us. Now we can and do all these things.”

Last year, in a first for a senior Turkish official, then-Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered condolences to the relatives
of those who had died during the mass killings of 1915. The statement
was widely described as groundbreaking.

But as international preparations began for marking the centennial of
the killings, there has been a marked shift in the Turkish leadership’s
rhetoric.

Armenia and Turkey are locked in a verbal tussle not only over claims
of genocide, but over allegations that they are both trying to upstage
each other on April 24. On that day, Ankara plans to mark the World
War I triumph of Turkish troops over allied forces at Gallipoli. The
commemoration of that victory in previous years had been held in March.

The recent maneuvering has caused unease in Turkey’s ethnic Armenian
minority. “The atmosphere is changing,” claimed Yetvart Danzikian,
editor of the Turkish-Armenian-language weekly Agos. “We can see
hard language about Armenians again. Yes, the AKP did some reforms,
but we have entered a new period.”

During his presidential campaign last August, Erdogan termed being
called an Armenian “even worse” than the usual political insults.

Nationalist rhetoric often marks Turkish political campaigns, but
some fear that, in addition to the tension surrounding April 24,
anti-Armenian slurs could incite nationalist attacks. In March,
an Armenian church in Istanbul was covered in anti-Armenian graffiti.

The experience of the Jewish minority also provides cause for concern.

In March, a pro-AKP television station broadcast a 90-minute
documentary about alleged international Jewish conspiracies against
Turkey.

Political scientist Ayhan Aktar of Istanbul’s Bilgi University sees
the AKP’s nationalist remarks as rooted in Erdogan’s desire “to be
the defining leader of Turkey of the 21st century.” There is also a
pragmatic reason for Erdogan’s shift: for the past two years, he has
been engaged in a political struggle with former ally Fetullah Gulen,
an influential Islamic cleric who lives in self-imposed exile in the
United States. Some local observers believe that to win such a battle,
the president is trying to woo a new ally – the military.

Erdogan has had a tense relationship with the military, spending
much of his tenure as prime minister trying to diminish the political
influence of Turkey’s generals. But in March, Erdogan apologized to
generals arrested as part of a wide-ranging coup investigation for
wrongful prosecution. In April, the courts overturned all 236 related
convictions and released all those jailed.

Some of these individuals are popularly believed to have been part of
the so-called derin devlet, or deep state, a shadowy group of officials
and military brass that ran extra-legal operations. The deep state
is widely blamed for being behind assassinations and attacks against
Turkey’s ethnic Armenians.

“With the jailing, the attacks and intimidation [against ethnic
Armenians] stopped,” Agos Editor Danzikian noted. But now, the
president “is making an alliance with the army.”

“The consequence of this alliance is that Erdogan is much closer
to army thoughts, secular authoritarian thoughts and state
authoritarianism.”

Consequently, the releases pose a dilemma for ethnic Armenians about
how to view the AKP.

“They recognize this government has done more than their predecessors
[to normalize ties with the country’s ethnic Armenians]. That
is clear,” argued political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Istanbul’s
Suleyman Ã…~^ah University. “But [ethnic Armenians] also recognize
the present policies of the government on democracy, human rights,
and opening up of the public space are getting worrisome.”

Some Armenians still appear willing to give the government the
benefit of the doubt. Before the AKP came to power, “I felt … like a
foreigner, even a dangerous foreigner, but now I feel like an equal
citizen” in Turkey, declared columnist Esaian.” I am talking for
myself, but there are many who feel like me and we see that it will
get better.”

Hope persists that with the conclusion of the two centennials and
the June elections, tensions will subside. But some prefer to stay
cautious. “I want to believe the steps [toward better relations
with ethnic Armenians] are permanent, but I am not sure,” said Agos’
Danzikian.

Editor’s note: Dorian Jones is a freelance reporter based in Istanbul.

From: A. Papazian