Big News Network
Jan 16 2015
For Armenia, Is Turkey’s Gallipoli Invite Good-Hearted Or Backhanded?
The Turkish government has reportedly issued a rare invitation to the
president of Armenia, Serzh Sarkisian, to attend a special ceremony
marking the 100th anniversary of World War I’s Gallipoli campaign.
The Turkish daily Hurriyet says President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
sent invitation letters to more than 100 global leaders, including
Sarkisian.
The gesture could be interpreted as a sign of rapprochement between
Ankara and Turkey, which have no diplomatic relations.
Many, however, may see the invite as a slight.
The two-day Turkish commemoration, scheduled for April 23-24, overlaps
with a critical anniversary of Yerevan’s own: the centenary of the
mass slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.
Armenians claim Ottoman troops systematically killed some 1.5 million
Armenians and deported many more from their traditional homeland in
what is now eastern Turkey.
Armenians claim Ottoman troops killed some 1.5 million Armenians and
deported many more from their traditional homeland in what is now
eastern Turkey.
Yerevan and the Armenian diaspora have traditionally commemorated the
slaughter on April 24 and often use the anniversary as an opportunity
to lobby Western governments to formally brand the massacre a
genocide.
Turkey strongly rejects the term, countering that atrocities were
committed by both Turks and Armenians during and after World War I.
The heated dispute, soured further by Armenia’s open hostility toward
Turkish ally Azerbaijan, has left many countries attempting to strike
a diplomatic balance between Ankara and Yerevan.
Twenty-two countries recognize the slaughter of Turkey’s Armenians as
genocide, including France, Russia, and Canada.
Erdogan’s invitation instantly sent a flurry of angry comments
cascading through the Armenian Twitterverse, with one user dismissing
the gesture as “denial and distraction.”
Tigran Lazarian, the chief spokesman for the Armenian Foreign
Ministry, accused Erdogan of seeking to keep foreign leaders away from
Armenian commemorations by creating an impromptu — and historically
inaccurate — anniversary of his own.
But Richard Giragosian, the director of the Regional Studies Center,
an independent Yerevan think tank, says those Armenians who support
normalization between Armenia and Turkey will see the invitation as a
welcome, if somewhat disingenuous, step.
“It is, of course, not enough, and it’s rather dubious in terms of the
timing of the Gallipoli commemoration events,” he says. “Yet, in a
situation where we do not have official diplomatic relations, this is
an important step symbolically.”
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (center right) talks to
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian during his inauguration in
Ankara in August 2014.
In the past year, Turkey and Armenia have taken a handful of baby
steps aimed at eventually restoring diplomatic ties. Then Prime
Minister Erdogan by offering Turkey’s “condolences” to descendants of
Armenians killed in 1915.
The two countries’ foreign ministers also exchanged visits, with
Armenia’s Eduard Nalbandian notably attending Erdogan’s inauguration
as president in August 2014.
A Turkish government official attempted to put a positive gloss on
Sarkisian’s invitation to attend the Gallipoli commemoration, saying
Armenian and Turkish troops “fought as a kind together” to repel
Allied forces seeking control of the peninsula on the Dardanelles
strait.
It is unclear whether that logic will hold sway in Yerevan, where all
eyes will be on a series of global events marking the massacre
anniversary.
It remains to be seen, meanwhile, how world leaders will react to the
prospect of dueling invitations. U.S. President Barack Obama is widely
expected to turn down the Turkish invite. The prime ministers of
Australia and New Zealand, as well as Britain’s Prince Charles —
whose countries constituted the bulk of the Allies’ Gallipoli forces
— are expected to attend.
Sarkisian himself has yet to respond to the gesture, a fact that
Giragosian attributes in part to domestic unrest over the of an
Armenian family by an armed Russian soldier in Gyumri.
If and when the Armenian leader responds, however, Giragosian says he
hopes Erdogan’s offer will be “duly noted, welcomed, and appreciated.”
“Despite the fact that Sarkisian is probably not even intending to
accept the offer, the invitation should be welcomed,” he says. “But
that’s idealistic. In reality, we should expect a deafening silence
from the Armenian side. And perhaps, in some ways, a diplomatic missed
opportunity.”
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