ARMENIANS FACE EXILE AS GENOCIDE DEBATE FLARES DAMIEN MCELROY
Sydney Morning Herald
exile-as-genocide-debate-flares-20100318-qif8.html
March 19 2010
Australia
TURKEY has threatened to expel 100,000 Armenians from the country
in response to a US congressional committee branding the killing of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I as genocide.
The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the position
of the immigrants, many of whom have lived there as refugees for a
generation, was being reviewed.
Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians died in massacres
as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated during the war.
Turkey concedes that tens of thousands died in ethnic fighting, but
vehemently disputes accusations that the killings were systematically
planned.
Tensions with Armenia have risen recently as a well-organised
international campaign has persuaded the Swedish parliament and a US
congressional committee to adopt resolutions condemning the killings
as genocide.
An Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day Bill has been put before the
House of Commons in Britain.
Mr Erdogan has warned the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown,
that relations will suffer if the bill is passed.
Turkish law makes discussion of genocide an offence punishable by
imprisonment.
"There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our country. Only
70,000 of them are Turkish citizens, but we are tolerating the
remaining 100,000," Mr Erdogan said. "If necessary, I may have to
tell these 100,000 to go back to their country because they are not
my citizens."
The suggestion has proved controversial in Turkey, with Ahmet
Davutoglu, the Foreign Minister, rejecting any calls to drive out
Armenians.
Mr Davutoglu said the move would put Turkey in the "hot seat" as it
tried to fend off charges of ingrained racial prejudice.
"All newspapers will publish photos of deported Armenians and it will
be called nationalism," he said.
Turkey has been dismayed by the campaign as it had been trying to
establish normal diplomatic relations with the former Soviet state.
Mr Erdogan said its neighbour should distance itself from the overseas
Armenians leading the lobbying.
"Armenia has an important decision to make. It should free itself from
its attachment to the diaspora. Any country which cares for Armenia,
namely the US, France and Russia, should primarily help Armenia to
free itself from the influence of the diaspora."
But there was uproar in Armenia over the suggestion of deportations.
Hrayr Karapetyan, an MP, condemned Mr Erdogan’s remarks as blackmail.
In the US, the congressional resolution that would recognise the
World War I-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide
may go forward despite opposition from the Obama administration.
The US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs,
Philip Gordon, said there was no deal with Democratic congressional
leaders to block the resolution.
"Congress is an independent body, and they are going to do what they
decide to do," he said.