THE WORST TIMES THE TURKISH DIPLOMACY HAS TO GO THROUGH
PanARMENIAN.Net
Analytical Department
16.10.2007 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Falah Mustafa Bakir, the Head of the Kurdistan
Regional Government’s (KRG) Department of Foreign Relations states:
"The Armenians are winning, we are paying off. The Kurdish province in
Iraq is the safest and the most stable one, but it can pay off a very
big price for the actions of the Kurdish Workers Party in Turkey,
exactly as for the voting of Resolution 106 about the Armenian
Genocide. None of these questions has any relation to the Kurdish
people of Iraq or the government of the province. We are not looking
for any conflicts with Turkey; just on the contrary, we believe that
the friendly relations with Turkey are one of the key priorities we
can have."
True though, there are "other" Kurds who welcome the Resolution
about the Armenian Genocide of 1915. It should be mentioned that in
1947 when the Turkish troops occupied the northern part of Cyprus,
the World Community’s reaction was not so violent.
Perhaps the present government of Turkey has a strong reason to
think of the Young Turks with a kind of jealousy, for it was all the
same for them how the World Community would response to the Armenian
Genocide. The truth is though, that in those times too the newspapers
wrote about the terrible slaughters. In its article "The Armenian
Slaughter. Annihilation of a Race. Horrifying History" published on
October 8, 1915 The Times wrote about the Armenian Genocide. The
article told in details about the systematic exterminations of
the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the atrocity of the Turkish
soldiers butchering the Armenians, about the Kurds attacking the
Armenian villages, about how crowds of wounded, exhausted and faint
with hunger Armenians were forced to cross the desert Deir ez Zor,
where the dead bodies of women, children and old people covered all
around. The Times also writes about the vain attempts of European
diplomats, having witnessed those horrifying events to prevent the
violence of the Ottoman Turks and quotes Talal Ataturk’s words who
announced in the beginning of the 20th century, "Armenians are the
race, whose extermination will not be any big loss for anyone at
all." The other day the newspaper published the reprinted edition of
this article. And The New York Sun writes about the whole issue with
an open text: "It was Genocide, and it is simply indecent to deny
it. In our days the denial of the Armenian Genocide is considered to
be a sign of bad form."
Elements of absurdity are sure to be observed in this story. The
statement made by Turkish Prime Minister’s advisor on foreign policy
issues Egemen Bagis saying that, "Turkey must apply sanctions against
Armenia, since it supports the Resolution 106 of the U.S. House
Committee on Foreign Affairs about the Armenian Genocide" cannot be
qualified differently. Or maybe the advisor forgot that the borders
have been closed since 1993, or he intends to close the way to Armenia
from Turkey through Georgia. Even if Georgia agrees to do that,
it will have to deal with Europe, which is already inclined to the
earliest opening of the Armenian-Turkish borders. Otherwise what will
this symbolic gesture give? Another more dangerous thing will be the
arrest of the Armenian citizens who are in Turkey illegally. According
to Turkey there are 70.000 of them, but more reliable sources show
that there are 10.000-15.000 people. This will already be enough to
complicate the situation of RA’s foreign policy. The aim of these
statements is quite clear, it aims at upsetting Armenia’s routine with
the hope that it will finally agree with the Turkish suggestion of
establishing a commission of historians and follow whatever comes next.
According to the former Ambassador Gunduz Aktana, one of the most
fervent opponents of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey
should apply the hardest sanctions against the USA, "Whatever happened,
happened. Turkey must undertake return measures," announced Aktana in
his interview with Turkish Daily News. According to him, otherwise
the country could pay a higher price and in the final result could
lose the principles of its foreign policy. Nuzet Kandemir turned to
the government with the request to consider all the risks the possible
responses from the USA.
"These measures shouldn’t be publicly discussed, they should be
discussed secretly and seriously with the condition of realizing them
only when the right time comes," he said.
The problem is that the relations between Turkey and the United
States are not correctly qualified. The strategic partners act like
one state and two nations, but in American-Turkish relations things
are quite differently arranged. The approval of the Resolution
106, the reestablishment of the relations with the radical Islamic
grouping HAMAS and the agreement on cooperation with Turkey and Iran
in the field of energy showed that these two countries have not been
strategic partners but only allies. If we look at the problem in this
prospective, we will not find ourselves in confusion," thinks Turkish
diplomat Inal Batu.