Author: Tigranian Ani

Turkish commentary urges “pragmatic” stance on Armenian genocide issue

Milliyet web site, Istanbul
26 Apr 05

Excerpt from report from column “Commentary” by Sami Kohen, “We
survived it this year too, but…”, published by Turkish newspaper
Milliyet web site on 26 April

This year’s 24 April (Armenian Genocide Day) was weathered with
relatively little damage despite attempts to give it a special
significance by virtue of it marking a 90th anniversary.

It is true that demonstrations were held, parliamentary resolutions
were passed, commemoration ceremonies attended by senior officials
were organized and extensive media campaigns were waged in countries
ranging from France and the United States to Poland and Ukraine, but
all these are in the past now. [Passage omitted]

Still, we must not think that the pro-Armenian (or anti-Turkish)
campaign that uses 24 April as a lever or excuse will not continue or
that we will not encounter similar situations again in the
future. This possibility always exists (that is before even next 24
April).

We are pleased that President George W Bush did not use the word
“genocide” in his 24 April message this year either. There was a
genuine concern about this issue. Because of the “sour” state of
Turkish-US relations the Bush administration might use a style
different from that of the past in this year’s message, that is it
could use the word “genocide.”

That it did not shows its willingness to disregard domestic political
considerations because of the importance it attaches to
Turkish-American relations. Administration circles in Washington
realized that the use of the word “genocide” in Bush’s message this
year could create a serious crisis in US relations with Ankara –
especially at a time when they seem to be improving.

Nonetheless this should not prevent us from seeing that the general
climate in the United States with regard to the “Armenian question” is
“to support the genocide hypothesis.” Indeed this is the climate in
numerous states and even the US Congress. A resolution that has
gathered many signatures in recent days is expected to go before
Congress soon. This time the likelihood of the passage of such a
resolution is considered quite high – unless the administration tries
to stop it.

Would it do that? That remains unknown, at least for now.

We will find out about this in the coming weeks. This means the
following: We have survived 24 April but the matter is not closed.

This is true for not just the United States but several other
countries (and even the EU).

In other words, unless a reasonable, conciliatory and compromise
course is taken, the “Armenian question” will come up on the agenda
continually and will create problems and tensions in relations with
not only with the Armenian world but also numerous countries.

In view of this, Turkey has to think more globally in order to develop
new strategies and to maintain the initiative on this issue. In this
context, the latest steps taken by Ankara (its proposal to Armenia for
the formation of a joint commission and the discussion of
confidence-building measures in some recent secret contacts) are
positive developments. Turkey can certainly pre-empt future
adversities with new initiatives without waiting for the next 24
April. At a minimum this would show Turkey’s good will and impress the
international community. For example, Ankara can propose new openings
in bilateral relations with Yerevan, and nongovernmental organizations
in Turkey can engage in a constructive dialogue with the Armenian
diaspora.

Yes, the way to prevent this issue from looming before us every year –
or throughout each year – is to generate new rational and pragmatic
strategies.

Journal of Turkish Weekly
April 27 2005

`Armenian Reply is Full of Tricks’

The Armenian Head of State Robert Kocharyan has responded to a letter
from the Turkish Prime Minister calling for a joint committee to
study the issue of the so-called genocide.^

Ankara says it is wary of the wording of the offer, which leaves many
issues not addressed.

The letter said that Armenia was ready to establish relations with
Ankara without any conditions, however Armenian leader implies many
conditions and tricks.

`Let us firstly set up relations, Kocharyan’s letter read. `We can
later take into account various matters in an inter-governmental
committee.’ However, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that the
letter of the Armenian Head of State was full of tricks of
terminology and that Ankara was cautious over establishing relations
without having settling the issue of the alleged genocide.

Armenian Government tries to establish diplomatic relations before
any commission. But Turkey says Armenian forces must be withdrawn
from Karabakh and Armenia must publicly recognize Turkey’s national
borders for diplomatic relations. Armenian forces have occupied 20
percent of Azerbaijani territories and Yerevan rejected all calls
from Turkey, US and the EU to end occupation.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
April 26, 2005 Tuesday 2:37 PM Eastern Time

Armenia again offers unconditional normalization to Turkey

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

Armenia has offered unconditional normalization of the bilateral
relations to Turkey, and is offering that again, says a reply by
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan to Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan.

The Armenian president’s press service released the message text on
Tuesday evening.

The April 10 letter by Erdogan suggested forming a group of
historians and other experts for studying the 1915 events (Armenian
genocide in the Ottoman Empire) in the archives of Armenia, Turkey
and third countries and informing the world about the research
results.

Kocharyan thinks that Armenia and Turkey can form “an
intergovernmental commission to discuss any problems the two
countries have for the sake of their settlement and achievement of
mutual understanding.”

“Being neighbors, we should try to find a way to future accord, so we
have been suggesting the establishment of diplomatic relations, the
opening of borders, and the beginning of a dialog between countries
and peoples from the very start,” Kocharyan said.

“There are neighbor countries with a difficult past, which is given
different interpretations, in the world, including Europe, but they
still have open borders, normal relations, diplomatic contacts and
each other’s representatives in their capitals while discussing
disputable issues,” he said.

The Turkish proposal “to review the past cannot be efficient if it is
not valid for today and tomorrow,” he said. “We need to create a
favorable political atmosphere for an efficient dialog. The
governments are in charge of the development of bilateral relations,
and we have no right to delegate this responsibility to historians.”

Pan Armenian News

ROMANIAN JOURNALIST – ETHNIC ARMENIAN LIFE ENDANGERED

26.04.2005 06:44

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The League of Arabic States has called Iraqi separatists
to release 3 Romanian journalists taken captive March 28, one of them being
ethnic Armenian, reported RFE/RL. Iraqi separatists threatened killing
journalists if Romania does not withdraw peacekeeping forces from Iraq.

No meeting planned between Azeri, Armenian foreign ministers – spokesman

Noyan Tapan news agency
26 Apr 05

YEREVAN

No meeting has been scheduled yet between the foreign ministers of
Armenia and Azerbaijan, Vardan Oskanyan and Elmar Mammadyarov, the
Armenian Foreign Ministry press secretary, Gamlet Gasparyan, has told
our Noyan Tapan correspondent.

He also said that there was still no agreement on a meeting between
the Armenian foreign minister and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen.

We should note that the media has been reporting of late about a
forthcoming meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign
ministers and the [OSCE Minsk Group] co-chairmen in Europe.

Génocide arménien
En Turquie, le tabou peine à être levé

Hormis quelques frileuses initiatives envers Erevan, Ankara ne varie pas sa
thèse sur le génocide.

Par Ragip DURAN et Marc SEMO

lundi 25 avril 2005 (Liberation – 06:00)

A Istanbul

«Soyez prêts pour le tsunami arménien», lançait au début de l’année
Mehmet Ali Birand. Le journaliste vedette de CNN-Turk tentait ainsi de
secouer les autorités, embarrassées par les pressions de la communauté
internationale – notamment européennes mais aussi américaines – sur la
reconnaissance du caractère génocidaire des massacres d’Arméniens en
1915. Cette nouvelle difficulté dans la longue marche vers l’Union
européenne irrite et inquiète une société qui, dans sa grande
majorité, n’a toujours pas réellement commencé, quatre-vingt-dix ans
après, son «travail de mémoire» sur la partie la plus sombre deson
histoire. Le tabou se fissure néanmoins grâce au courage de certains
intellectuels.

«La question reste extrêmement sensible mais, en même temps, chacun
sait que l’on ne peut plus maintenant ne pas en parler. Le djinn est
sorti de sa bouteille et l’on ne pourra plus l’y faire rentrer»,
souligne Ahmet Insel, professeur à l’université de Galatassaray.

Lourd héritage. Les autorités ont tenté quelques timides
initiatives.Il y a quinze jours, le Premier ministre Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, issu du mouvement islamiste, a proposé à son homologue
arménien Robert Kotcharian l’instauration d’une commission mixte
d’historiens. «L’administration turque est coincée car elle veut
poursuivre son processus d’accès à l’UE alors que les lobbies
arméno-occidentaux se mobilisent», note l’historien Halil Bektay, un
des rares universitaires turcs à évoquer le mot génocide à propos des
tueriesd’Arméniens dans les dernières années de l’Empire ottoman. La
thèse officielle reconnaît 300 000 morts alors que les Arméniens
parlent de un million ou de un million et demi.

La cause est entendue pour les historiens qui s’appuient sur les
archives alliées et allemandes ou sur les minutes des procès tenus à
Istanbul en 1919 : ni l’ampleur ni le caractère systématique des
massacres ne sont contestables.

Créée sept ans après la tragédie, la République turque n’a toujours
pas réussi à se situer par rapport à ce lourd héritage. «La Turquie
est fière deson histoire», martèle le ministre des Affaires
étrangères, Abullah Gül, et les autorités nient farouchement toute
volonté d’extermination planifiée,assurant que l’exode forcé des
Arméniens de l’est de l’Anatolie était la conséquence de leur alliance
avec les troupes russes. «En étudiant les correspondances des
autorités civiles et militaires de l’époque, qui seront
intégralementpubliées, il sera aisé de voir qui a fait le génocide
contre qui», affirmait la semaine dernière le général Erdogan Karakus,
président du Centre d’étudesstratégique et historique de l’armée. La
presse turque des derniers jours déborde de récits sur les atrocités
commises par les combattants arméniens contre des civils turcs.

Les autorités martèlent que l’ouverture de la frontière et de l’espace
aérien avec l’Arménie, reconnue en 1991, dépend de l’attitude d’Erevan
et «de l’abandon de thèses falsifiant l’histoire».

Prise de conscience. Défier la vérité officielle n’est pas
facile. Lemois dernier, le célèbre romancier turc Orhan Pamuk avait
évoqué dans une interview à un journal suisse que «un million
d’Arméniens et 30 000 Kurdes avaientété tués en Turquie». Il a
immédiatement été assailli de coups de filde menace et un sous-préfet
a même proposé la destruction de ses livres en place publique.

Un appel signé par 200 intellectuels a dénoncé ce climat d’«hystérie
nationaliste» encore attisé par les tensions croissantes avec les
Kurdes. «La paranoïa des autorités turques est encore accrue par
l’attitude de ces Européensqui exigent la reconnaissance du génocide
arménien», s’inquiète Baskin Oran, professeur de sciences politiques,
qui a publié à l’automne un rapport accablant sur la situation des
minorités et de leurs droits. Mais la prise de conscience est aussi de
plus en plus réelle. Occultée depuis quatre-vingt-dix ans, la
splendeur passée des Arméniens de la Turquie ottomane ressurgit au
travers de livres à succès ou d’expositions. «Le mouvement a commencé,
mais il reste encore beaucoup à faire», reconnaît Etyen Mahçupyan,
journaliste et écrivain arménien d’Istanbul, admettant que la question
des massacres reste beaucoup plus explosive : «La population turque
n’a pas encore pris conscience du problème, et,dans un tel contexte,
imposer une solution de l’extérieur ne peut que susciterdes réactions
hostiles.»

Interfax, Russia
April 24 2005

World community must recognize Armenian genocide – Kocharian

YEREVAN. April 24 (Interfax) – Armenia on Sunday is commemorating the
90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

In an address to his compatriots Armenian President Robert Kocharian
said that, the crime against Armenians, committed 90 years ago, had
no parallel or even name in the history of Mankind.

The year 1915 cut through the fate of the Armenian nation, radically
changing the natural course of its history, Kocharian said.

“International recognition and condemnation of genocide is a goal
which not only Armenia must attain. It should be viewed today in the
context of international politics. Armenians are not experiencing any
hatred. Armenia is declaring its readiness to build normal relations
with Turkey. However, the policy being pursued by Ankara is arousing
surprise not only in Armenia, but elsewhere in the world,” the
Armenian president said.

The genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire has been recognized
and condemned by 15 countries, including Russia, by commissions in
the UN, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the
European Parliament, and by 32 of the 50 US states. International
recognition of the Armenian genocide ranks among Armenia’s
foreign-policy priorities.

Armenians in Nijmegen commemorate genocide
By our correspondents

De Gelderlander (Dutch regional paper)
April 23, 2005

NIJMEGEN – “Who remembers the Armenians?”, Adolf Hitler said shortly before
the invasion of Poland. Meaningful, because the genocide on the Armenian
people, which started exactly ninety years ago today, has become forgotten.

The Armenian youth organization VAN in Nijmegen is holding a commemoration
ceremony in community center De Driesprong at Cyclamenstraat 10 for the one
and a half million Armenian victims.

“It is my duty to organize this”, says G. Abrahamian, co-founder and
chairwoman of VAN. The primary goal of the organization, which counts fifty
members, is preservation of the Armenian culture. Abrahamian: “We do not do
this in an isolated manner. Everyone is welcome.”

Because with the commemoration ceremony VAN not only tries to attract
Armenians, but also non-Armenians. “We know what happened, but many people
do not. We therefore want to spread the message to the outside. However,
being a small community nobody writes about you in The Netherlands. It is
even difficult to have your story published in the newspapers when you are
unknown.”

Armenians from Nijmegen and from others parts of The Netherlands will go to
Assen in great numbers. In Assen there is a monument in commemoration of the
genocide on Armenians, that was unveiled in 2001 with great Turkish
protests. In Turkey, the massacres continue to be a subject that is not
talked about or published. The Turkish rulers at the time were the ones who
ordered the massacres. Officially, the murders are denied by Turkey.

“It is a sensitive issue, for both Turks and Armenians. When differences of
opinion are not settled by countries, you simply cannot deal with each
other,” says Abrahamian. She adds: “But I do have Turkish friends.”

Chicago Tribune

Editorial
April 23, 2005

Correcting a history of denial

Scarcely nine months into World War I, Turkey began the deportation of
hundreds of thousands of Armenian citizens to camps that supposedly
had been prepared for them in the Syrian desert.

There were no camps.

By the time the forced march into the desert and other atrocities were
over, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were dead.

The courageous U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau shouted insistently
into Washington’s deaf ears about the ongoing slaughter. He called it
“race murder;” the term “genocide” would not be invented until the
1940s, by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew. “Persecution of Armenians
assuming unprecedented proportions,” Morgenthau cabled to
Washington. “Reports from widely scattered districts indicate
systematic attempt to uproot Armenian populations through arbitrary
arrests, terrible tortures, whole-sale expulsions and deportations
… accompanied by frequent instances of rape, pillage, and murder.”

Sunday is the 90th anniversary of the start of the Armenian
genocide–and also of one of the longest-running cases of national
amnesia in history. To this day the Turkish government insists no
genocide took place, that it was a mutual bloodbath in which many
Turks also died. As recently as April 14, the Turkish Parliament
issued a declaration denying, once again, Armenian charges of
genocide. However, some Turkish writers and academics have slowly
begun to recognize the validity of Armenian claims.

Unlike Germany’s admission of responsibility for the Holocaust, Turkey
continues a furious worldwide campaign to prevent governments from
using “Turkey” and “genocide” in the same sentence. Only a few
countries have officially condemned the genocide as such, including
Canada, France, Poland and Russia.

Ronald Reagan was the last American president to use the word genocide
in an annual statement about the events in Armenia. All other
presidents since have opted for “massacre” or “tragedy.” Now a letter
to President Bush, so far signed by 178 House members and 32 senators,
calls for the U.S. to officially recognize and condemn the Armenian
genocide.

Even if Turkey finally recognizes the genocide, it’s doubtful
Armenians will receive any compensation for something that happened 90
years ago. By now most Armenians probably just want an admission from
Turkey that a terrible evil was committed in its name in 1915.

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

Leader
Forgotten Holocaust
Saturday April 23, 2005
The Guardian

It is not every day that there is a chance to ponder the significance
of events that happened in the distant past, so tomorrow’s 90th
anniversary of the start of what Armenians call their genocide at the
hands of the Turks should not pass unnoticed. This subject cannot be
tackled without negotiating a minefield of claim, counter-claim and
fury. Many historians believe that between 1915 and 1923 the Ottoman
Turkish authorities orchestrated the killing of 1.5 million Armenian
Christians. Turkish governments have always insisted that a few
hundred thousand died in “spontaneous” violence that constituted
neither extermination nor genocide, and that in any case began in
wartime, when the Armenians, seen as a fifth column, were fighting
alongside Russian forces.

Ohan Pamuk, Turkey’s most famous writer, was vilified recently for
referring to a million deaths, many of starvation on a long march into
exile in the Syrian desert. When France, home to the largest Armenian
diaspora community, planned to commemorate the killings, it received
threats from Turkey. Henry Morgenthau, then US ambassador to Istanbul,
reported “cold-blooded, calculating” slaughter. But American
governments speak only of “tragedy” to avoid offending their
ally. Armenians, marking the catastrophe in Yerevan and beyond, call
it the forgotten holocaust and say Turks should no more be allowed to
deny their responsibility than Germans for exterminating Europe’s
Jews. (Hitler, whose crimes areremembered, once scornfully asked who
remembered the Armenians).

With emotions still running so high, it is encouraging that Turkey has
asked Armenia to join a commission with unfettered access to the
records of both countries, including Turkey’s first world war military
archives. Armenia rejects this, saying the historical facts are
clear. Ankara fears the issue is being exploited by those, especially
in France, who oppose Turkish membership of the EU. To some extent,
the response is defensive. But whatever their motives, it will be
welcome if Turks are now ready to look at their past with a more open
mind.