Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 21 2015
Gallipoli commemorations cancelled due to lack of international interest
February 21, 2015, Saturday/ 17:00:00/ LAMÄ°YA ADÄ°LGIZI / ISTANBUL
Centennial commemorations of the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I
initiated by the Turkish government and to be celebrated on April 24
of this year — the same date as the centennial commemorations of what
is called the `Armenian genocide’ — have been cancelled due to the
unwillingness of international leaders to visit Ankara and overshadow
the genocide ceremonies in Yerevan.
`The Gallipoli celebrations have been cancelled. All preparations have
been suspended as the number of RSVPs to the invitation is not
positive. Only five countries have accepted the invitation and they
will not be represented by high-level officials,’ an official from the
government, who asked to remain anonymous, said in a talk with
Sunday’s Zaman.
The suspension of the Gallipoli commemorations, which were being
organized by the Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sport, is part of
longstanding war of words between the Turkish and Armenian leaders
following an exchange of invitations by both sides urging each other
to accept the request and honor their victims of the World War I in
their respective countries. However, neither side appears to be
compromising.
The tense ties between Armenians and Turks became particularly
strained after Ankara decided to commemorate the Gallipoli Campaign on
the same date as the 100th anniversary of the 1915 events that led to
the killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during WWI. The Turkish
government sent invitations to more than 100 leaders around the world,
including Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, to attend the event. The
campaign was one of the most famous battles of WWI when Ottoman troops
resisted the invading Allied forces who sought to control the
Gallipoli peninsula on the Dardanelles strait.
“We fought together as one of a kind. That’s why we invited Sarksyan,”
a government official was quoted by local media as saying, referring
to the participation of Armenian minorities alongside Turks in the
Ottoman army.
Yerevan rejected the invitation and in an open letter to President
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, Sarksyan said the invitation itself showed
Turkey’s continuing policy of denying the Armenian genocide and
emphasized that Turkey needs to recognize the 1915 killings as a
genocide.
A couple of months earlier Sarksyan had first invited ErdoÄ?an — after
he was elected president in August of last year — to join Armenians
in commemorating the victims of the Armenian `genocide’ in Yerevan on
April 24. The invitation was presented by Armenian Foreign Minister
Eduard Nalbandyan during the first official visit of an Armenian
minister to Ankara.
Armenians claim that 1.5 million Armenians were systematically killed
in the final years of the Ottoman Empire in a way that constitutes
genocide, a claim categorically denied by Turkey. Ankara says the
death toll is inflated and denies that the events of 1915 amounted to
genocide, arguing instead that both Turks and Armenians were killed
when Armenians revolted against the Ottoman Empire during WWI in
collaboration with the Russian army, which was then invading Eastern
Anatolia. Every year on April 24, Armenians around the world
commemorate the Armenian victims who died at the end of WWI.
The latest debacle in the already heated relations between Turkey and
Armenia was Sarksyan’s withdrawal of the Zurich protocols from the
Armenian Parliament. “The Turkish government has no political will,
distorts the spirit of the protocols and continues its policy of
setting preconditions,” Sarksyan said in a statement issued on Monday,
adding that Turkey’s “policy of denial and rewriting of history” on
the eve of the 100th anniversary of the 1915 killings is being revived
in Ankara.
The Zurich protocols, intended to normalize ties between Turkey and
Armenia, were signed in Zurich on Oct. 10, 2009 with the aim of
establishing diplomatic relations and opening the two countries’ land
border, which was closed in solidarity with Azerbaijan after
Armenia-backed armed forces seized Azerbaijani territories as part of
the Nagorno-Karabakh war. The normalization process had been
deadlocked ever since as neither Parliament approved the deal. Both
Ankara and Yerevan have accused each other of setting new conditions
on the deal agreed to in Zurich years ago. Turkey has many times
stated that any development, such as reconciliation or opening the
border between the two estranged nations, could not be expected until
Armenia settles the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan,
Turkey’s ally in the region.
Instead, Ankara extended its commitment to the peace protocols.
Calling Armenia’s decision `inconsistent and insincere,’ Turkish
Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgiç said on Tuesday that Armenia
wanted further reasons to criticize Turkey ahead of the 100th
anniversary of the 1915 events.
`The real test will be in April,’ said Richard Giragosian, the
director of the Yerevan-based Regional Studies Center (RSC), adding
that although the current developments seem to taint relations, they
do not necessarily signal the death of the normalization process
although the process itself has reached its lowest point.
Relating the tense political atmosphere on the Armenian-Turkish
normalization to the domestic issues in both countries — the upcoming
June general election for which ErdoÄ?an is trying to secure votes and
Sarksyan using the protocols to deal with his own domestic political
troubles — Giragosian says the test will depend more on what Turkish
leaders say and do on April 24.
Last April ErdoÄ?an extended his condolences to Armenians over what
happened in 1915, although the act did not meet the expectations of
Yerevan or the Armenian diaspora.
In Ankara, Güner Ã-zkan, an expert on the Caucasus at the International
Strategic Research Organization (USAK), is not positive about any new
developments in the Turkish-Armenian ties at least until the upcoming
general election in Turkey on June 7.
Calling Sarksyan’s latest step a “unilaterial decision,” Ã-zkan doesn’t
seem convinced as to the continuation of the precedent established by
ErdoÄ?an a year ago: “I don’t expect any sudden move [from Turkish
leaders including ErdoÄ?an] especially under the increasing pressure on
Ankara on the eve of the approaching 100th anniversary of the
so-called genocide and the upcoming election.”
http://www.todayszaman.com/national_gallipoli-commemorations-cancelled-due-to-lack-of-international-interest_373217.html