THE NEW YORK TIMES: TURKEY’S STANCE IS HARD TO FATHOM
PanARMENIAN.Net
19.05.2006 16:09 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey’s self-destructive obsession with denying
the Armenian Genocide seems to have no limits. The Turks pulled out
of a NATO exercise this week because the Canadian prime minister used
the term “genocide” in reference to the mass killings of Armenians
in Turkey during and after World War I.
Before that, the Turkish ambassador to France was temporarily recalled
to protest a French bill that would make it illegal to deny that
the Armenian genocide occurred. And before that, a leading Turkish
novelist, Orhan Pamuk, was charged with “insulting Turkish identity”
for referring to the genocide (the charges were dropped after an
international outcry), The New York Times writes.
“The preponderance of serious scholarship outside Turkey accepts that
more than a million Armenians perished between 1914 and 1923 in a
regime-sponsored campaign. Turkey’s continued refusal to countenance
even a discussion of the issue stands as a major obstacle to restoring
relations with neighboring Armenia and to claiming Turkey’s rightful
place in Europe and the West. It is time for the Turks to realize
that the greater danger to them is denying history.
Turkey’s stance is hard to fathom. Each time the Turks lash out, new
questions arise about Turkey’s claim to a place in the European Union,
and the Armenian Diaspora becomes even more adamant in demanding a
public reckoning over what happened. Granted, genocide is a difficult
crime for any nation to acknowledge.
But it is absurd to treat any reference to the issue within Turkey as a
crime and to scream “lie!” every time someone mentions genocide. By the
same token, we do not see the point of the French law to ban genocide
denial. Historical truths must be established through dispassionate
research and debate, not legislation, even if some of those who
question the evidence do so for insidious motives.
But the Turkish government considers even discussion of the issue
to be a grave national insult, and reacts to it with hysteria. Five
journalists who criticized a court’s decision to shut down an Istanbul
conference on the massacre of Armenians were arrested for insulting
the courts. Charges against four were subsequently dropped, but a
fifth remains on trial,” the article says.