Author: Andres-Papazian

AKP READIES DIVERSION AS GENOCIDE ANNIVERSARY NEARS

Al monitor
April 16 2015

Author: Kadri Gursel
Posted April 16, 2015

Before the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power, Turkey
pretended it had no “Armenian problem.” Under the AKP, it finally
acknowledged the issue, but keeps avoiding genuinely facing it.

Before the AKP, Turkey had an “Armenian taboo.” Under the AKP, it
broke the taboo and let the genie out of the bottle, but then didn’t
know how to deal with it.

Turkey under the AKP had feigned a desire to normalize ties with
Armenia. As part of this policy — branded the “Armenian opening”
— a number of significant diplomatic steps were taken, but they,
too, came to naught. The Turkish-Armenian border remains sealed and
official bilateral relations are yet to be established.

Information from Ottoman and church sources indicate that some 1.5
million Armenians lived in what is today Turkey before 1915, making
up 10% of the population. By 1923, when the Republic of Turkey
was established, the Armenian population was gone, barring a tiny
community in Istanbul. On the 100th anniversary of 1915, Turkey’s
Armenians are estimated to number some 50,000 people.

A century later, Turkey’s Armenian issue is still about providing
accurate and convincing answers to several basic questions and an
overall international acceptance of their validity. What happened to
the Armenians in 1915? Who did what and why?

The only universally accepted answer seems to be the year. With no
consensus on any other questions, “the 1915 events” has become the most
widely used term in Turkey to denote this episode in history. So,
some “events” in 1915 led to the mass killings and deportations
of Armenians.

On April 24, 1915, 250 Armenian intellectuals were arrested in Istanbul
and deported to Cankiri and Ayas in central Anatolia.

Representing the elite of Istanbul’s Armenian population, few survived
the deportation. Armenia and the Armenian diaspora mark this episode
as the beginning of the Armenian genocide, commemorating April 24 as
a remembrance day.

April 24, 2015, marks the centenary of the events, and so Armenia
and diasporic Armenians attribute a special importance to this year’s
anniversary and plan to commemorate it more strongly than ever.

The AKP’s Turkey, for its part, is in a “twilight zone” — a state of
ambiguity in which it recognizes its Armenian problem but fails to
face up to it properly. The near perfect portrayal of this confused
state lies in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself, whose attitudes
represent a tangle of contradictions.

Two different Erdogans have emerged on the issue. The first went down
in history on April 24 last year as the first Turkish prime minister
to issue a condolence message to Armenians. The other Erdogan seems
to view the Armenian ethnicity as offensive or shameful. In memorable
comments on his ethnic roots in an Aug. 6, 2014, television interview,
he said, “Some have said I’m Georgian. Others, excuse me, have said
even uglier things — that I’m Armenian. But I am Turkish.” This
second Erdogan has not even felt the urge to correct his gaffe.

In his condolence message, the first Erdogan acknowledged, “April 24
carries a particular significance for our Armenian citizens and for
all Armenians around the world,” adding, “We wish that the Armenians
who lost their lives in the context of the early 20th century rest in
peace, and we convey our condolences to their grandchildren.” To what
Armenians view as genocide, the text referred as “the events of 1915”
several times, and mentioned “relocation” once.

The phrase “events of 1915” in Erdogan’s message is one of the
hallmarks of the “twilight zone.” We have here a political leader with
a much softer rhetoric who avoids hard-line and denialist expressions
such as the “so-called Armenian genocide” or “Armenian lies,” which
the leaders of old Turkey employed. Yet, he can’t even bring himself
to call the Armenian tragedy a “massacre.”

The fact that Erdogan spoke of “relocation” makes no difference,
either. An attitude inclined to see the tragic loss of human life as
the natural consequence of deportation offers no realistic prospect
of settling the Armenian problem on any discussion platform.

Still, compared with its predecessors, the AKP government has been
more tolerant of those who call the massacres “genocide” even though
it doesn’t recognize them as such itself. A good illustration of this
tolerance was Turkish-Armenian writer Etyen Mahcupyan’s appointment as
chief adviser to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in October. Mahcupyan
was given the post despite being well known for using the “genocide”
label, and continuing to use it after his appointment. Similarly,
since 2012, the government has allowed groups marking April 24 as
the Armenian genocide remembrance day to gather in Taksim, in the
heart of Istanbul, where police are normally quick to break up any
dissident demonstration.

Yet, in a surprise development April 16, Mahcupyan was sent into
retirement on age-limit grounds, a move that came shortly after Pope
Francis and the European Parliament drew Turkey’s ire by calling the
events a genocide. Despite the retirement explanation, Mahcupyan was
widely believed to have lost his post for being too outspoken on this
issue and that of corruption in government ranks.

So, on the centenary of 1915, a Turkey stuck in such a “twilight
zone” can hardly be expected to do more than hope to weather the
anniversary unscathed. All of Ankara’s diplomatic and political
preparations for April 24 have been focused on this objective,
including some sly tactics. In one intriguing move, for instance,
the March 18 commemoration of the Ottoman victory in the Battle of
Gallipoli was rescheduled to April 24.

The oddity of the timing stems from the sequence of events during the
battle. March 18, 1915, was the day when the Allied fleet entered
the Dardanelles Strait before being forced to retreat in a battle
involving layers of mines the Ottomans deployed in the sea. Erdogan’s
novel Gallipoli commemoration, meanwhile, comes on the eve of April 25,
the day that marks the pre-dawn landing of British and French troops
on the Gallipoli Peninsula, an event that could hardly be interpreted
as any kind of victory.

On April 8, journalists accompanying Erdogan on a flight back from
Tehran asked the president about Ankara’s strategy for the centenary.

He gave the following answer: “God willing, this year we’ll issue our
message from the Peace Summit in Istanbul on April 23. Then we’ll all
go to [Gallipoli] the next day and pay our respects at the martyrs’
cemetery.”

A written message like last year’s will hardly suffice for the 100th
anniversary. Erdogan is expected to go a step further by reading out
the message himself.

Ankara has invited 102 heads of state to the ceremony, including
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. Rejecting the invitation, Sargsyan
slammed the timing of the Gallipoli commemoration, saying that Turkey
was pursuing “a primitive goal of deflecting the international
community’s attention from events that will mark the centenary of
the Armenian genocide.” Let’s recall here that Sargsyan had invited
Erdogan to the April 24 ceremonies in Yerevan long before Ankara
extended its own invitation.

Erdogan’s tactics aim to force world leaders to make a choice between
Turkey and Armenia, two countries incomparable in any aspect, based
on realpolitik considerations. According to the logic of the game,
a foreign leader invited to both ceremonies will tend to favor Turkey
because of its bigger international weight and significance. And if a
leader is unable to attend the Turkish ceremony, his or her attendance
of the Armenian one will be even more unlikely.

Squandered opportunity

In his condolence message last year, Erdogan said, “We, as the Turkish
Republic, have called for the establishment of a joint historical
commission in order to study the events of 1915 in a scholarly manner.

This call remains valid.” That was not true, as the call had long
become invalid.

The reconciliation protocols Turkey and Armenia signed in 2009
envisaged the creation of a joint history commission, along with
the establishment of diplomatic relations and the mutual reopening
of border crossings. According to the protocols, the commission was
meant “to implement a dialogue on the historical dimension with the
aim of restoring mutual confidence between the two nations, including
an impartial scientific examination of the historical records and
archives to define existing problems and formulate recommendations.”

Then-President Abdullah Gul was actively involved in the fence-mending
process, but Erdogan — prime minister at the time — made sure the
protocols were politically stillborn. In a May 13, 2009, speech in
Baku, Azerbaijan several weeks after the protocols were drafted,
he declared the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between
Azerbaijan and Armenia as a precondition for the normalization of
Turkish-Armenian ties. The protocols were nevertheless signed on Oct.

10, 2009, but they never made it to the two countries’ parliaments
for ratification, lingering in the deep-freeze before being officially
proclaimed dead.

The reason Turkey remains in a “twilight zone” today is because the
Erdogan government used the 2008-2009 reconciliation process with
Armenia not as an opportunity to resolve the Armenian question but as
a tool to enlist European and US support in its power struggle with
the Kemalist military and judiciary. For the AKP government at the
time, the objective of becoming the West’s favored partner in Turkey
and having Western support on any issue was much more important than
normalizing ties with Yerevan. And it pulled it off.

The Islamist AKP’s immunity to the nation-state ideology was good
enough to break the Armenian taboo of the old Kemalist Turkey, but its
political capacity fell short of getting Turkey to face its Armenian
issue in earnest.

Normalizing ties with Armenia could indeed serve as a catalyst for
Turkey to face up to history, but this requires a stronger driving
force to propel action, and it lies in Turkey’s European Union
membership process. But the chance of reviving the EU process under
Erdogan’s leadership is close to zero, meaning that Turkey is bound
to stay in the “twilight zone” for the foreseeable future.

From: A. Papazian

TURKISH FM TO VISIT WASHINGTON BEFORE OBAMA’S APRIL 24 STATEMENT ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

14:43, 17 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut CavuÃ…~_oglu will visit Washington from
April 18 to 21, during which he is likely to focus influencing the
wording of the White House’s official commemoration on the upcoming
centennial anniversary of the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in
1915, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

CavuÃ…~_oglu will meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, White House
National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgic told reporters
on April 16.

He will also visit the Turkish-American Cultural and Civilization
Center and participate in a conference at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.

Also expected to be on the agenda of the visit are the situations in
Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Libya, Yemen, and Cyprus, as well as the fight
against terrorism and the issue of energy security.

Regarding Barack Obama’s annual April 24 declaration, CavuÃ…~_oglu is
expected to focus efforts on urging Washington not to use the word
“genocide” in his statement. In recent years, Obama has used the term
“Meds Yeghern” (meaning “great catastrophe” in Armenian) to address
the events of 1915.

Meanwhile, a senior U.S. diplomat has been holding talks with Turkish
officials in Ankara, days before CavuÃ…~_oglu departs for Washington.

The U.S. State Department’s Assistant Secretary for European and
Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, who arrived in Turkey on April
15, was set to meet Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun
Sinirlioglu late on April 16.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Bilgic declined to elaborate on items
on the agenda of the meeting between Nuland and Sinirlioglu, only
saying it was part of “regular political consultation.”

From: A. Papazian

‘THE FALL OF THE OTTOMANS,’ BY EUGENE ROGAN

New York Times
April 16 2015

By BRUCE CLARKAPRIL 16, 2015

In November 1914, the world’s only great Muslim empire was drawn into
a life-or-death struggle against three historically Christian powers
— Britain, France and Russia. All parties made frantic calculations
about the likely intertwining of religion and strategy. The playing
out, and surprise overturning, of these calculations informs every
page of Eugene Rogan’s intricately worked but very readable account
of the Ottoman theocracy’s demise.

As Rogan explains in “The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the
Middle East,” the Christian nations of the Triple Entente had millions
of Muslim subjects, who might in their view be open to seduction by
the Ottoman sultan, especially if he seemed to be prevailing in the
war. The Ottomans, for their part, were in alliance with two other
European Christian powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary. Paradoxically,
the Teutons urged the sultan to use his role as caliph and proclaim an
Islamic holy war. One factor was that, as a newcomer to the imperial
game, Germany had relatively few Muslim subjects and less to lose if
the card of jihad were played. The Ottomans, meanwhile, feared the
influence of foes, especially Russia, over their own Christian subjects
— including the Greeks and Armenians, who formed a substantial and
economically important minority in both the empire’s capital and the
Anatolian heartland.

In the end, nothing went as expected, because global conflict overturns
all predictions. But the very existence of those religion-based
calculations had consequences, many of them tragic.

Rogan’s narrative shifts from the Aegean to the Caucasus to Arabia
as he traces those consequences, and shows how they led, ultimately,
to the Ottoman Empire’s defeat and collapse.

Defeat and collapse are not the same thing, and Rogan, a history
lecturer at Oxford University and the author of “The Arabs,” carefully
distinguishes them. The defeat that the empire suffered in 1918
was not total, and left some of the sultan’s -forces intact. One of
his adversaries, Russia, was by then engulfed by revolution and had
bowed out of the war, letting Turkish forces recoup lost ground. The
final collapse of the Ottoman order was -neither an instant result of
the 1918 armistice, nor, on Rogan’s reading, an inevitable one. But
for a power whose strong point was military excellence rather than
commercial or technological prowess, the defeat was painful enough.

Continue reading the main story

In the Ottomans’ confrontation with Britain, there were several
early -surprises. Instead of the sultan winning over London’s Muslim
subjects, it was the British who profited by breaking the Turks’ hold
over certain Muslims, especially the descendants of the Prophet who
controlled Arabia. With fair success, and some spectacular setbacks,
Britain also managed to deploy its own colonial troops, whether Hindu
or Muslim, against the Ottomans in Mesopotamia.

But when the Ottomans defended their Anatolian heartland, they showed
an iron will that the British underestimated. In the disastrous
British-led assault on the Dardanelles straits, and the subsequent
landing at Gallipoli, it was not the Ottoman imperium that began
crumbling but the British one, as Australian, New Zealand and Irish
soldiers became embittered by the incompetence of the power they
served.

Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story

Using personal histories to leaven what might otherwise have been a
heavy diet of places, names and dates, Rogan neatly links the Turks’
costly success at the Dardanelles with the dreadful events that
unfolded about 1,000 miles away, on the eastern edge of present-day
Turkey. In this, the centenary year of the horrors suffered by the
Ottoman Armenians, many readers will turn immediately to those events
to see how Rogan negotiates the contesting versions.

It is not in question that from April 1915 onward, Armenian subjects
of the Ottoman Empire died horribly in enormous numbers. The American
administration, which for diplomatic reasons still balks at using
the word genocide, accepts that as many as 1.5 million perished. It
is on record that in May 1915, a law was passed calling for the
“relocation” of the entire Armenian population of eastern Anatolia;
nor does anybody seriously question that this became a death march
whose victims were killed by their guards, attacked by others or
perished from exhaustion and starvation.

But there is a more contentious charge, and in a few succinct lines,
Rogan affirms it. He agrees that in addition to ordering a vast,
brutal internal deportation, the Committee of Union of Progress,
the shadowy institution that was directing the Ottoman war effort,
issued unwritten orders for the mass murder of the deportees.

Secret, oral orders are hard to prove or disprove, but Rogan accepts
the case for their existence made by the Turkish scholar Taner Akcam.

This book uses words like “annihilation” and “massacre” more often than
“genocide” but does not avoid the g-word. As he explains in a footnote,
Rogan employs the term genocide in support of the “courageous efforts”
of Turkish historians and writers to “force an honest reckoning with
Turkey’s past.”

At the same time, the book makes many of the arguments that qualified
defenders of the Ottoman record point to: for example, that in winter
1914 and spring 1915, there was fierce fighting in eastern Anatolia
between Turks and Armenians; sometimes the Armenians fought alone,
and sometimes with Russian help. In Istanbul, at the same time,
Turkish officialdom’s fear of an “enemy within” was running high
because local Armenians were suspected of favoring Britain’s plans
to advance on the city.

All that provides some psychological background to the drive against
the Armenian population. So too does the huge Turkish loss of life,
from cold and disease as well as bullets, during and after the Russian
victory at Sarakamis in December 1914. But Rogan does not for a moment
suggest that this amounts to a moral justification of the horrors the
Armenians endured. To stress, as some Turkish versions of the story
do, that this was a period involving tragic suffering on all sides
is valid as far as it goes, but it is not an adequate statement. It
is to Rogan’s credit that he acknowledges this.

Still, a moral assessment of the treatment of the Armenians is not the
main purpose of this book, which promises a more Ottoman-centric vision
of a conflict that is often described through the eyes of British
generals and strategists. That promise is only partly fulfilled. In
what is a manageably sized book, Rogan feels he must spend several
pages on the motives of the Ottomans’ adversaries, especially Britain;
that limits the space he can devote to bringing the Ottoman side of
the story to life.

Some gripping sections describe the -British-led advance on
Jerusalem in late 1917, leading to the holy city’s capture in time
for Christmas. This is an extraordinary tale and Rogan recounts it
well, making clear both the stiffness of the Turkish defense and the
ingenuity of Britain’s -tactics.

The book explains how, with the experience of an imperial power at
its height, the British used dynastic rivalries to rally the Muslims
of Arabia and the Levant against their Turkish overlords. In doing so
they established the principle that in the 20th century, ethnicity
and nationalism (in this case, Arab nationalism) would often trump
religious bonds, even in lands where faith was zealous. Only in the
early 21st century is that trend being reversed, as competing versions
of Islamism vow to tear down the borders that were drawn a century ago.

THE FALL OF THE OTTOMANS

The Great War in the Middle East

By Eugene Rogan

Illustrated. 485 pp. Basic Books. $32.

Bruce Clark, who writes about religion, history and society for
The Economist, is the author of “Twice a Stranger,” a study of the
Turkish-Greek population exchange.

From: A. Papazian

THE NEW YORK TIMES: JAILED AZERBAIJANI JOURNALIST TO RECEIVE BARBARA GOLDSMITH FREEDOM TO WRITE AWARD

19:33 16/04/2015 >> LAW

A jailed Azerbaijani journalist, Khadija Ismayilova, will receive a
prestigious press freedom award from the PEN American Center, as the
nonprofit literary organization joins a rising wave of international
criticism directed at the government of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham
Aliyev over human rights abuses and the suppression of free speech, an
article published in the newspaper The New York Times reads.

The author writes that Ms. Ismayilova, an investigative journalist who
repeatedly drew the ire of Mr. Aliyev by reporting on corruption
allegations against his clan, has been imprisoned since early
December, 2014. Initially, she faced allegations that she nearly drove
a colleague to commit suicide. But since then she has been convicted
of criminal libel in a closed trial and also charged with
embezzlement, tax evasion and other crimes. Among the subjects she
reported on were business dealings by the Aliyev clan involving
construction projects tied to the Eurovision Song Contest, which was
held in the capital, Baku, in 2012. She also drew attention to human
rights abuses in Azerbaijan.

“Khadija Ismayilova is not only a fearless journalist, but also one of
the most fierce advocates on behalf of the dozens of writers and
dissidents jailed in Azerbaijan for exercising their right to free
speech,” Khaled Hosseini, author of “The Kite Runner” – which
Ismayilova had translated into Azerbaijani – and a member of the PEN
American Center, said in a statement. Even from prison, Ms. Ismayilova
has continued to write, sending letters describing solitary
confinement and other harsh treatment, while repeating her criticism
of the Aliyev government. Suzanne Nossel, the executive director of
the PEN American Center, told The New York Times correspondent in a
telephone interview that Ismayilova literally will not be silenced.

According to the article, at the PEN American Center’s gala in New
York City next month, Ms. Ismayilova will receive the Barbara
Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, which is given annually to writers
who are imprisoned or otherwise persecuted for their work. Of 39
honorees, who were in jail at the time they received the award, 34
were later freed, according to PEN. Past recipients have included the
Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega, the Chinese human rights activist
Liu Xiaobo, who was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as
poets imprisoned in Kosovo and China.

As the article reads, the mounting criticism over the arrests in
recent months of journalists, civil society activists and political
opposition figures, as well as a government raid that shut down the
Baku office of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty comes as Azerbaijan is
planning to hold the first European Games organized by the
International Olympic Committee. In a separate effort organized by the
PEN American Center, a group of prominent writers and editors,
including many well-known American sportswriters, has written to the
International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, urging him to
condemn the rights abuses in Azerbaijan and to demand Ms. Ismayilova’s
release.

“Azerbaijan does not abide by the central human rights principles —
among them freedom of the press — that live in the spirit of the
Olympic Charter. The environment in Azerbaijan has become increasingly
repressive,” wrote the authors including the editor of The New Yorker,
David Remnick; the veteran sports columnists Dave Anderson and Robert
Lipsyte; the filmmaker and writer Ken Burns; the writers David
Maraniss and Michael Lewis; and the NBC Olympics anchor Bob Costas. An
international group of policy analysts, former government officials,
civil society advocates and academics issued a letter urging the US
Secretary of State John Kerry to take action against Azerbaijan.

Related:

Human rights groups appeal to U.S. Secretary of State to boycott
European games in Baku

American students launch line of bracelets with arrested journalists’
names, including one from Azerbaijan

Detained Azerbaijani journalist writes about women’s problems in prison

From: A. Papazian

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT’S RESOLUTION TO HAVE GLOBAL CONSEQUENCES – DAVID BABAYAN

08:36 * 17.04.15

David Babayan, Spokesman for the President of the Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic (NKR), believes that the European Parliament’s resolution is
a significant victory in the process of international recognition of
the Armenian Genocide – a moral and, to an extent, political victory.

“Of course, it will have global consequences and influence on Turkey’s
policy. I think the international community may alter its approaches,”
Mr Babayan said.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIA PARTICIPATES AT HIGHEST LEVEL IN EASTERN PARTNERSHIP’S INSTITUTIONS – STEVEN BLOCKMANS

13:03 17/04/2015 >> POLITICS

Armenia continues to participate at the highest political level
in the multilateral institutions of the Eastern Partnership, Steven
Blockmans, senior research fellow, the head of the ‘EU foreign policy’
and ‘politics and institutions’ units of the Centre for European
Policy Studies CEPS (Belgium), said at the internet press conference
organized by “Region” Research Center.

“The annual EU-Armenia Cooperation Council remains in place and
continues to provide a platform for high-level talks between the
Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbandian and High
Representative Federica Mogherini, European Commissioner Johannes Hahn,
and the Minister of Foreign Affairs holding the rotating Presidency
of the Council of the EU (currently Latvia). Armenia also continues
to participate at the highest political level in the multilateral
institutions of the Eastern Partnership,” Mr Blockmans said.

When asked about the prospects of Armenia – EU relations in light of
the reorganization of the EU Neighborhood policy, he said that now it
is difficult to predict how much of the Association Agreement can be
salvaged in order to replace the outdated Partnership and Cooperation
Agreement. “In addition, I can say that the EaP summit at Riga will
provide the first elements for the review of the European Neighborhood
Policy which is expected to be unveiled in October.”

From: A. Papazian

THANK YOU, HAY ZINVOR!: ANOTHER CAMPAIGN CALLING FOR “SURPRISE” GIFTS TO SOLDIERS ON IN ARMENIA

SOCIETY | 17.04.15 | 13:15

Alina Nikoghosyan
ArmeniaNow intern

A campaign called “Thank you, Armenian soldier” will be held for the
third time in Armenia, this year it will be distinguished by its
larger scale, the organizers say explaining that this year much more
people are aware of it.

The action will take place in Yerevan’s main Republic Square on
Sunday. It will be from morning till night and all residents can send
any gifts to the soldiers defending Armenian lands. The goal of the
initiative is to surprise the soldiers serving on the border by way
of gratuity.

“Everyone can join us, regardless of their social status anyone can
help as much as they can, means of hygiene, sweets and etc,” Jirayr
Voskanyan, the initiator of the campaign, and the press secretary of
a non-governmental organization told media on Thursday.

The organizers say that sports personalities, culture figures and media
representatives have joined them and soldiers will receive thanksgiving
words and wishes recorded on videotapes besides the presents.

The past two campaigns took place in 2014. Their proceeds were
transferred to two of the military units of the Tavush and Ararat
regions, but there is no exact number of people participating in
the program.

“Approximately 300-400 people participated in the previous campaigns.

We try to include various military units in Armenia, having team
discussions on where it is more efficient to hold the campaign,”
Tamara Avetisyan, a representative of the Civil Voice NGO, said,
adding that generally the presents are given to border military units.

The organizers give assurances that the two previous attempts have
shown that the soldiers feel “very touched and appreciated”.

From: A. Papazian

L’ARMENIAN COUNCIL OF EUROPE A ISTANBUL LE 24 AVRIL

Communiqué de Presse

L’Armenian Council of Europe (ACE) se félicite de l’adoption par le
Parlement Européen, le 15 avril 2015, de la résolution appelant la
Turquie a “reconnaître le Génocide des Arméniens, et poser ainsi
les jalons d’une véritable réconciliation entre les peuples turc
et arménien”.

A la veille du centenaire du Génocide, la Turquie doit enfin faire
face a son histoire et a ses responsabilités qui incluent les moyens
a mettre en oeuvre afin de réparer les conséquences du Génocide.

L’ACE appelle tous les démocrates et tous les progressistes
européens, et au dela des frontières de l’Europe, a se rendre
massivement en Turquie le 24 avril 2015 pour participer aux quelques
trente événements commémoratifs du Génocide des Arméniens dans
les principales villes de Turquie, d’Ankara a Istanbul en passant
par Diyarbakir.

A Istanbul, l’ACE appelle a participer aux différentes commémorations
qui débuteront place Beyazit, a 10h00, a proximité de l’entrée
principale de l’université, la où précisément Paramaz et ses
compagnons ont été exécutés il y a cent ans, pour aller ensuite
a Sultanahmet où les intellectuels arméniens arrêtés le 24 avril
1915 ont été emprisonnés, puis a la gare de Haydarpasa, a partir de
laquelle ils ont été déportés, avant d’aller a la tombe de Sevag
Balıkci, assassiné le 24 avril 2011 parce qu’il était arménien,
pour finir au grand rassemblement place Taksim a 19:00.

Paris, le 16 avril 2015.

vendredi 17 avril 2015, Jean Eckian ©armenews.com

From: A. Papazian

THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE – THE GUARDIAN BRIEFING

14:03, 17 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Turkey has never accepted the term genocide, even though historians
have demolished its denial of responsibility for up to 1.5 million
deaths.

The Guardian

What’s the story?

On 24 April, Armenians in Yerevan and around the world will mark the
centenary of the genocide of 1915. That is the date when Ottoman
authorities began arresting the leaders of the 2 million-strong
minority Christian community. It is widely accepted that 1 million
to 1.5 million Armenians died in the ensuing years until 1922, though
there are no indisputable figures.

The Turkish government has never accepted the term genocide. It
recognises killings that occurred in wartime but denies Armenians were
systematically targeted and emphasises their links with enemy Russia
as well as Armenian attacks on Muslims. Modern historical research
has demolished the Turkish case, establishing intent, organisation
and responsibility.

Turkey’s position has softened in recent times. In 2014 Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, now president, described the killings as “inhumane” and sent
condolences to the descendants of the victims. But tempers flared when
Turkey announced it would mark the centenary of the Allied landings
at Gallipoli on 24 April. Critics say the intention was to deflect
attention from and limit attendance by foreign VIPs at the memorial
ceremony in Yerevan.

Armenians and others argue that impunity for the Turks, despite
international outrage at the time, was one of the factors that allowed
Hitler to exterminate the Jews of Europe a quarter of a century later.

How did this happen?

Armenians, an ancient people who converted to Christianity in the 3rd
century AD, were persecuted in Ottoman Turkey in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. There was anger about the way Europe and Russia
had intervened on the Armenians’ behalf as the empire lost territory.

Anti-Armenian violence occurred in the 1890s and in 1909.

The wartime mass deportations and killings were orchestrated
by the TeÃ…~_kilât-ı Mahsusa (meaning “special organisation”),
which sent coded orders to local governors. Armenians (in eastern,
Russian-controlled Armenia) did fight with the tsarist forces and
some Armenian nationalists helped precipitate the brutal Ottoman
response. But most victims were civilians.

Much of the killing was carried out by Kurdish tribesmen. Many
Armenians died from starvation and thirst on death marches in the
Syrian desert. Rape, torture and other atrocities were common.

Children, especially girls, were abducted and forcibly converted to
Islam. Property was expropriated and churches destroyed.

The US was neutral at the time and its diplomats, as well as American
and other Christian missionaries, witnessed and documented the
killings. Washington condemned “crimes against humanity” – the first
time that now common expression was used.

The Armenian republic that emerged at the end of the first world war
represented only a small part of historic Armenia. It was briefly
independent before becoming part of the Soviet Union until 1991, when
it regained its independence. Turkish (western) Armenia disappeared
from the maps.

Awareness of the genocide grew because of the focus on the Nazi
Holocaust in the US and Israel in the 1960s and 1970s. Access to
Ottoman archives has allowed scholars, Turkish and other, to deepen
understanding of what happened. Experts argue that, if there is
hope for change, it will come from shifting attitudes inside Turkey,
not from Armenian or international pressure on Ankara.

What are the issues?

Recognition and denial

Armenians demand Turkish recognition of the genocide, though the UN
genocide convention of 1948 is not applicable retroactively. Of the
22 countries that have formally recognised it, the most important are
Russia and France. The US employed the term under President Ronald
Reagan but has retreated since in the face of anger from Turkey,
a Nato ally. Barack Obama uses the term Meds Yeghern – Armenian for
“great calamity” – akin to the Hebrew word shoah for holocaust. But
he will not use the G-word.

Britain adopts a similar position, condemning the massacres but
arguing that the Armenian case has not been legally tested. Still,
along with statements by the pope and the UN, national legislation
criminalising genocide denial, and recognition by nearly all US
states and many parliaments – including the European parliament –
a quarter of the world in effect recognises the genocide. Outright
denial is rare except in Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Armenian-Turkish relationship

The genocide issue hangs heavily over bilateral relations. Armenians
say recognition is about their security, not only history and justice.

Turkey closed the border with Armenia in 1993 because of unresolved
conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan with an ethnic
Armenian majority, in which Ankara and Yerevan are on opposing sides.

Armenia has tried pragmatically to improve relations and achieve
reconciliation without setting preconditions, even on genocide. A
draft Swiss-brokered agreement in 2009 was never ratified because of
Turkish demands for movement on Nagorno-Karabkh. Thus two difficult
issues have become intertwined. The result is deadlock.

Change in Turkey

Attitudes to the Armenian question have changed in Turkey in recent
years, with liberal intellectuals questioning official narratives and
recognising the genocide. Many books have appeared on the subject,
which is researched and taught in universities. Reconciliation
ceremonies have been held in formerly Armenian areas with Kurds
whose ancestors slaughtered their Christian neighbours. Some Armenian
churches have been restored.

There is also growing recognition of the existence of many thousands
of “Islamised” Armenians, descendants of the survivors. Prosecutions
for “denigrating Turkishness” have diminished. Despite conciliatory
messages such as Erdogan’s last year, Ankara refuses to apologise or,
crucially, to budge on the genocide question. Still, the Turkish thaw,
argues expert Thomas De Waal “is the only good news in this bleak
historical tale”.

Armenian diaspora

Up to 10 million Armenians live outside Armenia, concentrated in
Russia, the US and France.

Many are direct descendants of genocide victims. Diaspora organisations
tend to be more militant than the republic itself on this question and
are suspicious of moves towards normalisation with Turkey. The two main
organisations in the US have made recognition their raison d’etre. This
helps them preserve a collective identity and resist assimilation.

A recent pan-Armenian declaration focusing on the genocide was
criticised by Levon Ter-Petrossian, the country’s former president,
reflecting the view that Armenia needs to focus on its current problems
and not be obsessed by a painful past.

Where can I find out more?

Peter Balakian’s The Burning Tigris is a readable account emphasising
US testimony. For forensic research by a Turkish historian, try Taner
Akcam’s A Shameful Act. In An Inconvenient Genocide, the British lawyer
Geoffrey Robertson makes the human rights case. The wider background
of the first world war has been recently retold in The Fall of the
Ottomans by Eugene Rogan. Other accounts include Thomas de Waal’sGreat
Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide and Vicken
Cheterian’s Open Wounds: Essays on Armenians, Turks and a Century of
Genocide. The website of the Gomidas Institutefocuses on historical
documentation about the genocide and current campaigns.

From: A. Papazian

FRANCE-INTER : GEOPOLITIQUE : “FRANCOIS, LES TURCS ET LE PARLER VRAI”

Publie le : 17-04-2015

Info Collectif VAN – – Belle chronique de Bernard
Guetta ce mercredi 15 avril dans Geopolitique du 7/9 de France-Inter
(8h16 – 15 Avril 2015. Si meme les membres de l’Institut du Bosphore,
organe de lobbying d’Ankara, commencent a tenir ce type de discours
sur “la Turquie [qui] persiste dans un deni que plus rien ne peut
expliquer”, la diplomatie turque peut commencer a se poser des
questions. Ce qui ne doit pas empecher les membres de cet organisme
“Bosphorisant” de s’interroger sur leur propre responsabilite dans ce
negationnisme d’Etat qu’ils encouragent de facto par leur soutien. A
savoir : L’Institut du Bosphore a ete l’un des fers de lance de la
cabale (couronnee de succès) contre la loi francaise de penalisation
de la negation du genocide armenien. Le Collectif VAN vous propose
la video de cette emission du 15 avril 2015.

France Inter

Geopolitique

par Bernard Guetta

Francois, les Turcs et le parler vrai

l’emission du mercredi 15 avril 2015

(re)ecouter cette emission

L’ambassadeur turc au Vatican a ete rappele pour consultations. A
Ankara, le nonce a ete convoque aux Affaires etrangères. President de
la Republique en tete, les dirigeants turcs s’epoumonent a denoncer
des propos >. C’est la crise entre le
Saint Siège et la Turquie et la raison en est cette denonciation par
le pape, claire et sans ambages, du genocide dont les Armeniens de
Turquie ont ete victimes il y a exactement un siècle.

>, avait lance Francois dans un message aux Armeniens lu, dimanche,
au debut d’une messe a laquelle avaient ete convies non seulement de
hauts dignitaires religieux armeniens mais egalement le president de
l’Armenie, petit Etat sorti de l’Union sovietique. Il s’agissait la
d’une declaration que le pape avait ainsi voulue solennelle, voire
retentissante, et il faut l’en applaudir et le remercier.

Il le faut, car en cette annee du centenaire de ce crime, le
refus d’en reconnaître la realite dans lequel s’obstine la Turquie
devient proprement insupportable. Il pouvait etre explicable – non
pas excusable mais explicable – lorsque la Turquie contemporaine,
a peine remise de la perte de son immense Empire, en etait encore a
se construire et s’affirmer sur la scène internationale. Ce n’etait
pas le moment, pouvait-elle se dire alors, de s’accabler d’un crime
que le monde avait, qui plus est, largement oublie et auquel beaucoup
des fondateurs de la nouvelle Turquie avaient eux-memes participe.

Au crime d’Etat succedait le mensonge d’Etat que la raison d’Etat
commandait mais, bon… Peut-etre pouvait-on comprendre comme on a
longtemps pu comprendre que la Turquie d’après-guerre ait persiste
dans ce deni, prise qu’elle etait entre ses permanents coups d’Etat
militaires et la violence de ses independantistes kurdes. Reconnaître
le genocide des Armeniens aurait pu affaiblir un pays confronte a
cette menace de fractionnement…

Peut-etre. Admettons-le, mais aujourd’hui ? La Turquie est aujourd’hui
une puissance economique en plein developpement. La violence kurde a
fait place a des negociations difficiles mais prometteuses. Plus rien
ne menace la Turquie mais, malgre les appels des plus nobles de ses
intellectuels, c’est toujours non. La Turquie, encore et toujours,
persiste dans un deni que plus rien ne peut expliquer, si ce n’est
un orgueil de puissance et, sans doute aussi, la crainte de demandes
de reparations financières et de restitutions de biens voles.

L’Eglise catholique se devait de marquer le centenaire du genocide
des chretiens que sont les Armeniens et Francois a d’autant plus tenu
a le faire que d’autres chretiens, ceux du Proche-Orient, sont en ce
moment meme chasses de leurs pays par la terreur et le sang.

Ne pas parler aussi fort de ce genocide eût ainsi ete se resigner au
silence sur le martyre d’aujourd’hui que Francois a, au contraire,
denonce dans le meme souffle en parlant du

From: A. Papazian