TURKISH PREMIER SAYS EUROPEAN STANCE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE REFLECTS RACISM

The New York Times
April 17 2015

By CEYLAN YEGINSUAPRIL 17, 2015

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s prime minister on Friday accused Europe of showing
signs of racism after the European Parliament passed a resolution
calling on his government to recognize the mass killings of Armenians
in the collapsing Ottoman Empire as genocide.

Although Turkey vowed to disregard the resolution, government officials
have lashed out at the European Parliament, the legislature of the
European Union, accusing it of contriving obstacles to relations
with Turkey. But the remarks by the prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu,
went further.

“The European Parliament should not take decisions that would result
in hatred toward a certain religion or ethnic group if it wants to
contribute to peace,” Mr. Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara. “This
issue is now beyond the Turkish-Armenian issue. It’s a new reflection
of the racism in Europe.”

The tensions came a week before Armenians across the world plan to
commemorate the 100th anniversary of what historians recognize as
the first genocide of the 20th century. Armenians say that as many
as 1.5 million Armenian Christians were systematically killed from
1915 to 1923 through mass slaughter, starvation and deportation into
the Syrian desert.

While Turkey acknowledges that atrocities took place, it refuses to
take responsibility for the deaths, claiming that a large number of
people — many of them Turks — were also killed as a result of civil
war and famine. Over the past century, all Turkish governments have
vehemently rejected the term genocide.

The debate over the characterization of the 1915 events gained momentum
after Pope Francis described them as genocide on Sunday in a Mass to
commemorate the killings. The statement caused a diplomatic uproar
from Turkey, which recalled its ambassador to the Vatican.

The European Parliament’s resolution on Wednesday calling on Turkey
to normalize relations with Armenia and recognize the genocide further
enraged the Turkish government.

In a call with Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament,
Mr. Davutoglu urged Europe to look in its own backyard by opening up
its archives on events affecting native tribes.

“If we open the books on European history, there will be questions
about what was done in Asia and Africa,” Mr. Davutoglu said. “What
happened to the original tribes there? Where are the Aborigines? Where
are the Native Americans?”

He continued: “We never had ghettos. Ghettos are a European product.

First there is ethnic discrimination, then there is genocide.”

After the European Parliament’s vote, Mr. Davutoglu’s chief adviser,
Etyen Mahcupyan, an ethnic Armenian, caused a bit of an uproar by
appearing to break with the government’s opposition to use of the
word genocide to describe what happened to the Armenian people.

“If you accept the events in Bosnia and Africa as genocide, it is
impossible to call what happened to the Armenians in 1915 something
else,” he said.

A day after his statement, the prime minister’s office announced that
Mr. Mahcupyan would be stepping down because he had reached retirement
age. But the timing led to speculation that he had been sidelined as
a result of his remarks.

“Mr. Mahcupyan’s comments were disappointing, but his retirement is
not related to them,” said an official at the prime minister’s office
who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comply with government
protocol. “At this stage, with the world siding against Turkey on
this matter, it does not surprise me that people would try and link
the two.”