Author: Karabekian Emil

HOUSE ARMENIAN "GENOCIDE" VOTE INCREASINGLY SEEN AS POLITICAL TURKEY
By Joe Gandelman

The Moderate Voice
Oct 18 2007

The move to get a vote in the House of Representatives condemning the
killings of Armenians nearly 100 years ago has seemingly hit a big,
fat political snag:

The vote is increasingly being seen as a political and a U.S. national
interest turkey. The Christian Science Monitor:

The sudden misgivings about a popular House resolution condemning
as "genocide" the large-scale killings of Armenians more than nine
decades ago illustrate a recurring tug of war in US foreign policy:
when to take the moral high ground and when to heed the pragmatic
realities of national interests.

The measure, which would put the House of Representatives on record as
characterizing as genocide the deaths of more than 1 million Armenians
at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, appeared on track to passage by
the full House after the Foreign Affairs Committee approved it last
week. But pressure from the White House – worried about the impact of
the nonbinding measure on relations with Turkey, a crucial logistical
partner in the war in Iraq – is now causing Republicans and Democrats
who had supported the measure to reconsider.

This underscores several factors at play.

It’s continuing evidence (among lots of mounting evidence) that even a
"lame duck" White House is a strong duck. It also underscores that
fact that, even amid many political divisions, there is a common
pragmatism among many lawmakers of both parties that causes them to
pause and consider whether a controversial action is indeed in the
long-term national interest. And it also reflects the fact that BOTH
"hawks" and "doves" on Iraq (despite the polemics of talk radio and
many weblogs) don’t want to do anything that will seriously sandbag
the American troops already over there.

"We regularly see the impulse of Wilsonian idealism, the emphasis on
democracy and human rights, counterbalanced by the pragmatic demands
of realpolitik. It’s one of the constant dynamics of American foreign
policy," says Thomas Henriksen, a foreign-policy scholar at the Hoover
Institution in Stanford, Calif. "We want to be the city on the hill,
but then some overriding interests come up and we say, ‘Oh, that’s
different.’ "

In this case, the overriding interest appears to be keeping on good
terms with Turkey, a NATO ally that opposed the war in Iraq but that
allows the United States to use bases there as part of crucial supply
lines to US troops and personnel in Iraq.

The fact that the vote has come up at all has sparked a mini-firestorm
in Turkey, raising the oft-stated theme that the Democrats are
weak when it comes to acting in favor of long-range foreign policy
interests:

Prospects for a full House statement on Armenian genocide have been
feeding nationalist flames in Turkey. The government of Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already been battling heavy anti-American
public opinion as it acts to address the problem of recurring attacks
by Kurdish rebels from across the border in Kurdish Iraq.

How quick has the move been to back off from what earlier had seemed
a near-certain vote?

It’s as if a parent unwrapped a toy for her child and suddenly saw
a label that declared: "MADE IN CHINA."

For instance, the New York Times reports:

Support for a House resolution condemning as genocide the mass killings
of Armenians in 1915 continued to weaken today as Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
who only days ago vowed to bring the measure to the floor of the House,
signaled that she may be changing her mind.

"Whether it will come up or not, what the action will be, remains
to be seen," Ms. Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill today. Her
uncertainty stood in sharp contrast to her earlier pledge to bring
the measure to the floor if it emerged from the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, which it did a week ago by 27 to 21.

Worried about antagonizing Turkish leaders, House members from both
parties have been withdrawing their support from the resolution,
which had been backed by the Democratic leadership.

The measure’s prospects were weakened further today when Representative
John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who heads the Appropriations
subcommittee on military matters, spoke out against it.

"What happened nearly 100 years ago was terrible," said Mr. Murtha,
who has urged the speaker not to bring up the resolution for a vote.

"I don’t know whether it was a massacre or a genocide, but that is
beside the point. The point is, we have to deal with today’s world."

And dealing with today’s world means dealing with Turkey,
said Mr. Murtha, long a Democratic leader on national security
issues. "Until we can stop the war in Iraq, I believe it is imperative
to ensure continued access to military installations in Turkey,
which serve U.S. operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan," he said.

The news cycle hasn’t seen this much media coverage of flip-flopping
since stories about the campaigns of former Massachusetts Governor
Mitt Romney, Arizona Senator John McCain and New York Senator Hillary
Clinton….

President George Bush has been calling for a "no" vote on the
resolution, but that doesn’t seem to be what’s tilting the windmill
back to its regular wind-path.

Meanwhile, there has been some political fallout within Turkey.

According to Bloomberg, ire over this issue coming up in America
has caused some in Turkey’s political establishment to point their
fingers at – you guessed it – the Iranian President’s favorite target:

Turkey’s rage over a U.S. congressional resolution accusing it of
genocide against Armenians nearly a century ago is being felt in
quarters far removed from Washington: its own Jewish community.

Turkish Jews’ concerns for their safety have been fanned by comments
from Foreign Minister Ali Babacan that there’s a perception in
the country that Jews and Armenians "are now hand-in-hand trying to
defame Turkey." Turkey’s complaint: Its usual allies among pro-Israel
U.S. lobbyists didn’t work hard enough to block the resolution.

Even as support for the measure fades in Congress – U.S. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi yesterday backed off her promise to bring it to a floor
vote – it has intensified feelings of vulnerability among Turkey’s
23,000 Jews, who have been subjected to terrorist bombings.

"There have been insinuations that our security and well- being in
Turkey is linked to the fate" of the resolution, Jewish leaders said
in a half-page ad in the Washington Times urging its rejection.

"Public opinion is so emotional on the issue that they seem to
blame everyone who may not have been able to block it," Sami Kohen,
a prominent member of the Jewish community in Istanbul and a columnist
for the Milliyet newspaper, said in an interview. "Some elements –
Islamists and ultranationalists – might use the Jews as a scapegoat
and say they have failed, they have done nothing."

Blaming the Jews – a sport seemingly more popular these days than
American football or European soccer – seems particularly ironic
since a Jewish organization is under fire in the United States now
for not doing ENOUGH to SUPPORT the resolution:

Even as support crumbles in Congress for a resolution recognizing the
World War I-era Armenian genocide, several Massachusetts towns are
still calling on the Anti-Defamation League to clarify its position
on the matter and support the resolution.

This week alone, Lexington and Westwood have suspended their
involvement in a popular ADL antibigotry program, joining four other
communities – Watertown, Newton, Belmont, and Arlington – in protesting
the ADL’s refusal to support the quest for genocide recognition.

Given the fading support for such a resolution in Congress,
Abraham H. Foxman, the ADL’s national director, said he believes
his organization was being wrongly punished by these Massachusetts
communities.

"I don’t think it’s fair," Foxman told the Globe yesterday.

Still, local Armenian-Americans and the town officials who have voted
to pull out of the ADL’s No Place For Hate program said they will
continue to pressure the ADL to specifically acknowledge the mass
killings as genocide no matter what Congress does. .

"The issue was not a political issue; the issue was a human rights
issue," said Marianne Ferguson, explaining why Newton’s Human Rights
Commission, which she chairs, voted to pull out of the ADL antibigotry
program last month. "And to deny a history, and deny that it happened,
to say, ‘Not so’ – you can’t do that and say you’re a human rights
organization."

Meanwhile, the debate in the U.S. news media continues. Dr. Michael
A. Moodian, of Chapman University, has an op-ed piece in the Los
Angeles Daily News which begins:

FROM 1915 to 1917, it is estimated that nearly 1.5 million Armenians
were killed by the Ottoman Empire in one of the greatest systematic
massacres in the history of modern civilization. Today, over 20
countries, including Russia, Canada, Greece, Italy and Poland,
formally recognize the atrocious events at the start of the 20th
century as a genocide.

However, last Wednesday, the Bush administration – in a direct insult
to the people of Armenia and hundreds of thousands Armenian Americans
– urged the House of Representatives not to support a resolution
sponsored by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, in which the United States
would officially recognize the event as a genocide. Bush cited a
potential strain in relations with Turkey.

Could there be a greater hypocrisy? On one hand, the administration
says that we are engaged in a war to liberate the Iraqi people from
a recent history of large-scale massacres from the Saddam Hussein
regime, yet we will do so by disregarding historical crimes against
humanity by our key ally in the Middle East?

The American Heritage Dictionary defines genocide as "the systematic
and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political or
ethnic group." However, though Bush acknowledges the tragedy of the
mass killings during the World War I era, he fears losing a geographic
ally in the supposed "war against terror." How keen of him.

Read it all because it highlights again the tug-of-war between taking
a moral stand and taking a position perceived as being in the best
national interest.

646/house-armenian-genocide-vote-increasingly-seen -as-political-turkey/

US COULD TAKE ACTION AGAINST KURDISH INSURGENTS WITH PROPER INFORMATION, SAYS US DEFENSE CHIEF
By Al Pessin

Voice of America
Oct 19 2007

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the United States might be
willing to take action against Kurdish insurgents who attack Turkey
from Northern Iraq if it had good information about their location.

VOA’s Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, 26 Sept. 2007

Secretary Gates says the United States would like to help Turkey
fight the Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK. But it does not
have enough specific information to take military action.

"I think that if we were to come up with specific information that
we and the Iraqis would be prepared to do the appropriate thing. And
if we had information on them in Turkey, that we would provide that
information. So we are determined to work with the Turks in trying
to reduce this threat to the Turkish people and the Turkish army,"
he said.

Secretary Gates’ comment was somewhat different from what other
defense officials said in recent days. They said fighting the PKK is
not a priority for U.S. forces in Iraq, and they lack the troops as
well as the information to attack the group.

Secretary Gates said the PKK fighters are "basically terrorists,"
who cause "harm and heartbreak" in their attacks. `

But he urged Turkey not to take military action in Northern Iraq,
where the PKK is based, even though its parliament authorized such
action on Wednesday. U.S. officials have urged a diplomatic approach,
and praised efforts by Iraqi leaders to work with Turkey to find a
solution to the PKK cross-border attacks. Secretary Gates says U.S.

officials are also urging the leaders of Iraq’s northern Kurdish
autonomous region to take action to stop the attacks.

The secretary says he will discuss the issue with Turkey’s defense
minister during a visit to Europe next week.

Secretary Gates also again warned of the consequences if the
U.S. Congress passes a resolution that would label the Turkish mass
killing of Armenians early in the last century as "genocide."

It now appears that the resolution may not pass, but Secretary Gates
says if it does he has no doubt that Turkey will retaliate by cutting
U.S. access to the key base at Incirlik.

"I don’t think the Turks are bluffing. I think it is that meaningful to
them. I think they see implications in terms of reparations and perhaps
even borders. And so I think there’s a very real risk of perhaps them
not shutting us down at Incirlik, but of placing restrictions on us
that would have the same effect," he said.

Secretary Gates repeated that 70 per cent of U.S. military air cargo
bound for Iraq uses Incirlik, and that a third of the fuel for the
Iraq operation goes through Turkey by road.

The secretary met with Armenia’s defense minister on Thursday, but
he says they did not discuss the congressional resolution.

THE GENOCIDE THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME
By Danny Kampf

Daily Colonial, DC
Oct 17 2007

Once, when faced with internecine skepticism over whether the West
would idle supine while Germany systematically murdered its Jews, Adolf
Hitler remarked: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of
the Armenians?" How telling those words are. More than six decades
have since come to pass and only now is their vile tale of inaction
beginning to be contradicted. Ex post facto just may have to retire.

It has been nearly a century since the Armenian Genocide. Mustering
God’s speed, putting the pedal to the metal and cruising away at
the blinding rate of bureaucratic inertia, the House Foreign Affairs
Committee passed a bill last Wednesday that called the genocide by
its proper name. Naturally, the Turks were outraged. Too soon? The
resolution was immediately denounced by Turkish politicians – as it
was praised by Armenian ones – and Turkey immediately withdrew its
ambassador to the United States for "consultations."

The bill’s momentum belongs to the Democrats and some Republicans,
but alas, not a veto-proof majority of them. And indeed, in what could
only make sense in the bizarro world of the Bush Administration, the
decider has decided on vetoing the bill should it pass Congress. For
someone who has based his legitimacy on the archetypical Wilsonian
concepts of spreading democracy and human rights as opposed to
pragmatic realism, denying genocide might strike you as a little
strange. I suppose seven years of groundless idealism is enough to
push anyone into the realist’s corner.

Bush doesn’t want to use the term "genocide" because it would anger
the Turks, a crucial ally in both his Global War on Terror and the
War in Iraq. Approximately 70 percent of our air cargo gets into Iraq
by way of Turkey. Food, water, and 1/3 of our fuel is trucked in from
there too. Turkey also has about 100,000 soldiers on the border with
Iraq that, if they ever decided to cross into the Kurdish North,
could create further nightmares towards any prospect of stability
there. The country also serves as an excellent base to outflank Anbar
province. There’s no doubt that Turkey has a lot of strategic value
to the United States. The question is, is that worth denying genocide?

Perhaps it would help us to frame this through a different lens. Say
everything in today’s world is exactly the same, except the roles of
Turkey and Iran have been switched and we don’t officially recognize
the holocaust rather than the Armenian Genocide. Would we really
defend holding off on calling the holocaust genocide so that Iran’s
bigots could help us out in Iraq?

Turkey is a country where insulting "Turkishness" is a crime, Mein
Kampf is a bestseller, and people like Hrant Dink, who bravely fought
for both Turkish and Armenian rights, are murdered by fascists in the
street. And we’re not going to take a stand? Canada, France, Russia,
Italy… even Uraguay have acknowledged the genocide and we can’t?

The Armenian Genocide saw the deaths of up to 1.5 million people
(from a community of 2 million). There were concentration camps,
forced deportations. People died in transit, their bodies lying
where they fell. Executions took place with poison, rifles, sabers –
whatever was at hand. Mass rape. Mass graves. In the words of Enver
Pasha: "The Ottoman Empire should be cleaned up of the Armenians and
the Lebanese. We have destroyed the former by the sword, we shall
destroy the latter through starvation." Churchill himself referred
to the genocide of the Armenians long before Hitler’s rise as a
"holocaust." If that’s not genocide, then I don’t know what is.

How can Bush denounce a man like Ahmadinejad for not acknowledging
the holocaust when he can’t seem to acknowledge one himself?

mp;s=4580

Platini sees eastern promise
Thursday 18 October 2007-

»UEFA President Michel Platini visited Armenia and
Azerbaijan for talks with government and football
representatives. Mr Platini accompanied FIFA President
Joseph S Blatter on the visit, which also saw the two
football leaders inaugurate football installations
built with the help of FIFA and UEFA assistance
programmes.

National team centre
In Armenia, the FIFA and UEFA Presidents came together
in the capital Yerevan with Football Federation of
Armenia President Ruben Hayrapetyan, and marked the
beginning of construction of Armenia’s new national
team training centre and football academy by burying a
time capsule with a message for future generations.
The installations are being built with the help of
major assistance programmes for the football family –
the FIFA Goal project and UEFA HatTrick scheme.

Game for millions
At the FC Banants youth academy, the Presidents had
the opportunity to show their appreciation of the work
done by club youth coaches. "We will support Armenia
in every possible way for the good of your children
and future players," said Mr Platini. "Football is not
about politics. It is a game for millions of people
and we are delighted to see that the standard of
Armenian football is improving so rapidly."

President’s advice
Youngsters at the Malatia football school were
delighted to meet the two dignitaries. "Here’s my
advice to you – think ahead. That’s what makes you a
great player," Mr Platini told them. "Not everyone can
grow up to be a star like Platini," added Mr Blatter.
"But whatever happens, football will have made you
better people. It is a sport which requires personal
discipline and respect for others."

Full backing
On the diplomatic front, Messrs Blatter, Platini and
Hayrapetyan met Armenia’s President Robert Kocharyan
and Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan. "We received full
backing from the Armenian government. State governors
have promised us that they will do everything
necessary for football’s development in Armenia in the
future. We welcome such an approach," said Mr Blatter
afterwards.

Honour for country
Mr Sargsyan expressed hope for the further development
of football as a popular mass attraction in Armenia
because, as he said, "football is a school for life".
"The presidents of two important football bodies are
making their first official trip together, and it is
to Armenia," added the country’s youth and sports
minister Armen Grygoryan. "It is an honour for our
country."

Baku House of Football
The party moved on to Azerbaijan, where Mr Blatter and
Mr Platini inaugurated the Association of Football
Federations of Azerbaijan’s impressive new House of
Football in the capital, Baku – built with the help of
the Goal and HatTrick projects.

For the good of children
Mr Platini encouraged Azerbaijan to work diligently to
nurture its football. "FIFA and UEFA have given you
the means to create an infrastructure, and that’s the
first step," he explained. "Now it’s up to you to
carry out development work and train good educators –
for the good of your children, who will perhaps become
great players one day." Mr Blatter added: "I believe
your football will continue to advance with giant
strides." Both leaders stressed the efforts being made
to create unity in world football and to develop the
game.

Creating interest
"I want to create interest in football among the young
people in our country. That’s why we ran street
football and seven-a-side tournaments around the
country this summer," said AFFA general secretary
Elkhan Mammadov. "They were a huge success, not least
in media terms. We now have to continue in this vein,
which means travelling everywhere and going into the
countryside to provide the means to help youngsters
play and train. That’s exactly what FIFA and UEFA are
helping us to do."

Meeting with president
Following a visit to the state university, where the
two Presidents were greeted enthusiastically, the
delegation met the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham
Aliyev, an avid fan of sport, who assured Messrs
Blatter and Platini of his continued support and
enthusiasm for football in the country. Mr Platini was
awarded Azerbaijan’s Order of Glory by Mr Aliyev.

©uefa.com 1998-2007. All rights reserved.

TURKISH ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL LOSES HOUSE SUPPORT
By David Rogers

Wall Street Journal
Oct 17 2007

WASHINGTON — Pressed by the White House and Turkish lobby, as many
as 11 House members have withdrawn as co-sponsors of a resolution
labeling the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire a
century ago as "genocide."

Seven members pulled their names from the measure Monday and four
more as of Tuesday, leaving passage of the bill in doubt. The rapid
erosion signals momentum has shifted in favor of Turkey and the Bush
administration, which has urged the Democratic leadership to block
a vote on the resolution, reported from the House Foreign Affairs
Committee last week.

"It couldn’t pass if it came up today," said Rep. John Murtha (D.,
Pa.) who has played a major role behind-the-scenes in helping to
pull members off the bill. While not ready to give up the fight,
Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.), the chief sponsor, conceded the powers
arrayed against him.

"We have truth on our side but truth doesn’t always win," Mr. Schiff
said.

Though non-binding, the language has huge political importance to
the Armenian-American community even as it has angered the Turkish
government, which has mounted a strong lobbying campaign enlisting
prominent veterans of Congress from both parties. Turkey recalled
its ambassador to the U.S. last week after the committee vote, and
as a NATO ally and vital supply route for on-going U.S. military
operations in neighboring Iraq, Turkey commands strong allies among
Democrats on prominent defense committees.

The Pentagon is preparing plans to send military supplies bound
for U.S. forces in Iraq through other countries if Turkey carries
through on threat to close its air space as part of a widening
political dispute with the U.S. Such a move would pose major logistical
challenges for the American military, which brings enormous quantities
of food, fuel, ammunition, spare parts and vehicles into Iraq every
month through the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) remains supportive nonetheless and
has pledged to allow a vote this year. But if support continues to
erode, her allies say she won’t bring the measure up if it only means
an embarrassing defeat.

Co-sponsor lists aren’t a decisive measure of support for a bill in
Congress and pressure from the Armenian-American community could yet
reverse the situation. But the erosion is striking: as of last week
the number of sponsors was listed at 226; it has now fallen to 215,
three below the required 218 majority in the House.

"There are a number of people who are revisiting their own positions
and we’ll have to determine where everyone is," said Majority Leader
Steny Hoyer (D., Md.), who remains supportive.

Write to David Rogers at [email protected]
/SB119264105551262139.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

ARA ABRAHAMYAN FOR TAKING THE CASE OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TO INTERNATIONAL COURT

Panorama.am
13:31 15/10/2007

Chairman of the Union of Armenians of Russia Ara Abrahamyan shared his
opinion with reporters today that the issue of the Armenian genocide
must be taken to the International Court since there are all legal
grounds to win the case there. In his words, the Armenian World
Congress has published a three-volume book on the Armenian genocide
that finally proves the happening of the genocide. In addition
to that, the Armenian World Congress has consulted with 50 legal
companies throughout the world and has got assured that the grounds
are sufficient to win the case at the international court. However,
he said the Armenian authorities did not consent to that saying that
the congress has no right to apply to the court and that it must be
done by Armenia.

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: HARMFUL IMPLICATIONS OF SYMBOLIC RESOLUTION

BYU Newsnet, UT

Oct 15 2007

President George W. Bush may not be the most refined diplomat the
United States has ever had in the oval office, but he knows when a
merely symbolic resolution has deep and damaging implications with
a key ally in an already struggling war effort.

Unfortunately the House Foreign Affairs Committee failed to listen
to the White House and the Turkish government, who warned of severe
consequences should the committee pass the resolution labeling the
nearly century old killings of Armenians as genocide.

The resolution sought to show the world that the U.S. was sensitive
to the killings that took place at the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Ironically, its passage is likely to incite more violence. "There
will be backlash," the Turkish ambassador said. "No government can
be indifferent to [this type of resolution]."

The Turkish government had been deciding if it should attack
northern Iraq to wipe out guerilla bases used by a Turkish-Kurd
separatist movement. The one thing preventing the military invasion
was the fear of the damage it would mean to U.S. relations. After
the resolution, Turkish anger is trumping the country’s desire to
preserve U.S. relations.

And Turkey isn’t just talking. As of Friday, U.S. officials spotted
60,000 Turkish troops along the Iraqi border. The troops are awaiting
its parliament to authorize a government request to invade Kurdish
Iraq. The parliament is expected to debate and vote on the request
early this week. If the body authorizes the request, the invasion
would destabilize one of the few areas that has remained relatively
peaceful throughout the conflict.

The potential invasion isn’t the only result of the resolution’s
passage. Turkey has served as a key U.S. ally during the War on Terror
by supplying critical supply routes to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Closing off these routes would threaten U.S. soldiers and greatly
handicap the U.S. campaign in Iraq.

Trying to salvage U.S.-Turkey relations, Bush sent two high-ranking
officials for diplomatic talks with Turkish leaders. The diplomats
expressed their regret about the resolution and promised to do all
that they could to keep the bill from being passed on the House
floor. However, at a time when the Turkish government has recalled
its ambassador to Washington, it is unclear whether Turkey wants to
talk. When France voted to make denying the Armenian genocide a crime,
the Turks immediately severed all military loyalties.

With all the implications of passing the resolution, it is hard to
understand why the House committee even considered it. Speaker of the
House Nancy Pelosi said the resolution needed to pass now "because
many of the survivors are very old," and the U.S. needed to condemn
the genocide while they were still alive.

There is no question whether the mass killing of Armenians was
genocide. It was a horrible thing that should be condemned. Ninety
years later, however, it is an issue better left to historians than
politicians. The resolution was completely non-binding and does little
good but to vindicate Armenians and place us on the right side of a
historical event. Is this really worth risking destabilizing Kurdish
Iraq and cutting off the region’s supply routes?

The costs of passing this resolution far outweigh its benefits. The
rest of the House of Representatives need to realize the international
consequences of this resolution before it is brought to the
floor. While the measure may only be symbolic and non-binding, its
implications are anything but that.

This editorial represents the opinion of The Daily Universe editorial
board. Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of BYU,
its administration or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Armenians’ late revenge

Kathimerini
October 15, 2007

By Nikos Konstandaras

The outrage with which the Turks greeted a US congressional committee
resolution last Wednesday to recognize the Armenian genocide indicates
the vital importance of the issue.

The greatest problems that Turkey is facing today are the increasing
pressure from abroad to acknowledge the Armenian genocide of 1915, the
Kurdish guerrilla war, the relationship between the state and religion
and between the state and the military, relations with the United
States and the European Union and relations with Turkey’s neighbors.
In this last issue, there is a section devoted to Greece and Cyprus (a
sobering detail for those Greeks who are obsessed with Turkey’s
behavior).

All nations have a hard time dealing with the revision of their
history, with a change in how they see themselves. We experienced this
recently in Greece with the tumult provoked by the stillborn effort to
provide sixth-grade school pupils with a history textbook that played
down the sense of victimhood that constitutes a large part of our
common identity.

The national identity is forged by the clashes and cohabitation with
neighboring nations and by domestic dynamics.

Consider, then, what forces come to the fore when a nation is pressed
>From abroad to acknowledge that its forefathers were the merciless
killers of other people. For the Turks, the history of their modern
state begins with Kemal Ataturk’s victory over the Greeks and the
establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923. They see the years
before this as a long, heroic march in which their nation was born out
of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, beat back various foreign enemies
and set course for accession into the Western world.

The Armenian question is a bomb deep in the heart of this foundation myth.

The Turkish authorities claim that the slaughter of 1915, in which 1.5
million Armenians are believed to have been massacred, was no more
than an unfortunate consequence of a turbulent time. They add that
there were victims on both sides. The Armenians, of course, and the
archives of many countries, have the documents to prove that this was
part of an organized Turkish effort to «cleanse» the country of
Armenians. The German historian Ulrich Trumpener notes a dispatch that
the ambassador of Germany (a Turkish ally at the time) sent to his
chancellor in July 1915 declaring that there was no doubt that the
Turks were trying to «exterminate the Armenian race in the Turkish
empire.» Ambassador Hans von Wangenheim and other foreign officials
tried to stop the Turks from continuing the slaughter, but in vain.
(«Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914-1918,» cited in David Fromkin’s
«A Peace to End All Peace.»)

In the Turks’ favor at the time was the fact that despite the
countless eyewitness accounts, the global slaughter of World War I
obscured the horrendous events in Anatolia. But the Turks finally fell
victim to their own successes: The Armenian presence was eliminated
>From the nation’s ancestral homeland and the survivors of the genocide
scattered across the world. Many took root in the great democracies of
the United States, Canada, France, Australia and so on. As their
living standards rose, they and their children gained increasing
political leverage in their new homelands and were thus able to press
with increasing stridency for the genocide of their people to be
acknowledged. Today this demand is at the core of the Armenian
identity, along with the wounds of the slaughter.

The Turks, who seem never to have fully compromised with their
neighbors and former subjects, now have to face demands from abroad
that they change the way they see themselves. Today’s Turks have
nothing to do with the events of nearly a century ago, but the sins of
their forefathers and their fathers’ denial of events have brought
about a most painful collision between the Turks’ past and their
future.

Among the many unsolved problems that Turkey faces, at a time when its
troops are massing on the border to fight the Kurds in Iraq, the
Armenian issue could become the greatest obstacle the country has to
face in its long march Westward. The Turks, like everyone else, have
no option but to try reconcile themselves with their past as it is and
not as they would like it to be.

Hìåñïìçí&# xDF;á : 15-10-07

Source: mns_2248559_15/10/2007_88943

SELFISH INTEREST
Gwynne Dyer

Calcutta Telegraph
p/opinion/story_8434199.asp
Oct 15 2007
India

Nothing much will happen right away. The Turkish ambassador to
Washington has gone home for "consultations" after the Foreign Affairs
Committee of the House of Representatives approved a bill declaring
the mass-killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World
War I was a genocide. But he will come back to Washington, and it
will be weeks before the full House passes the bill. This will be a
slow-motion disaster.

The White House tried hard to stop this bill. President George W. Bush
declared that "this resolution is not the right response to these
historic mass killings," and all eight living former US secretaries
of state, both Democratic and Republican, signed a joint letter to
the Foreign Affairs Committee urging it not to approve the bill. But
it did, by a 27-21 vote, and next month, the full House will do
the same: more than half the members have signed up as co-sponsors
of the bill. The United States of America will be the 23rd country
to fall to the Armenian campaign to link the Ottoman Turkey of 90
years ago with the Nazi Germany of 60 years ago and, by extension,
to implicate the current Republic of Turkey in premeditated genocide.

Once such a law is passed, to question the Armenian take on what
happened is to become the equivalent of a denier of the (Jewish)
Holocaust. The Armenian desire to have their national tragedy given
the same status as the Jewish Holocaust is understandable, but it
is mistaken. The facts of the case are horrifying, and certainly
justify calling the events in eastern Turkey in 1915-16 a genocide,
but the key elements of prior intent and systematic planning that
distinguish the Nazi Holocaust are absent.

When I was a graduate student in Middle Eastern history, as a
translation exercise, I was given the hand-written diary of a Turkish
soldier killed during the retreat from Baghdad in 1917. "Mehmet Cavus"
(Sergeant Mehmet) was a youthful village school-teacher who had been
called up in 1914. At first he had a safe billet guarding the Black
Sea entrance to the Bosphorus, but in 1915, his unit was ordered to
march east to deal with a Russian invasion and an Armenian rebellion.

Diary of a nobody

And then, in the diary of this pleasant, rather naïve young man, I read
the phrase "iyi katliam etmistik". Loosely translated, this means:
"We really massacred them". The diary was written in the old Ottoman
rika, a version of handwritten Arabic script that never really served
Turkish well. So I asked my teacher if it really said what I thought
it did. "Oh yes," he said. "Those were different times."

That excuses nothing, but it explains much. The foolish young officers,
who led the Ottoman Empire into the war, panicked when they realized
that the Russians were invading from the east and the British
were about to land on the Mediterranean coast. Just at that point,
Armenian revolutionaries, who had been plotting with the Russians
and the British to carve out an Armenian state from the wreckage of
the Empire, launched futile revolts to assist the invaders.

The Turks responded by slaughtering many Armenians in what is now
eastern Turkey and deporting the rest to Syria. It was certainly a
genocide, but neither premeditated nor systematic. Armenians living
in other parts of the Empire were largely left alone, and those in
the war zone with money for rail travel reached Syria safely.

So why is the US Congress "recognizing" the Armenian genocide, but
not the more recent genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda? Because there
aren’t many voters of Tutsi descent in key Congressional districts.

This is all about domestic politics: alienating the Turks doesn’t
cost much politically.

Armenian activists today aren’t looking for "justice". They want to
drive the Turks into extreme reactions, isolate them and derail the
domestic changes turning Turkey into a modern democracy. They do not
want Turkey to succeed. And the West is falling for it.

–Boundary_(ID_QrhzF7P9mImQBjToyjbstg)–

Anatolia News Agency, Turkey
Oct 13 2007

Premier says Turkey does not need advice on Iraq incursion

Istanbul, 12 October: Justice & Development (AK) Party Chairman and
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan harshly criticized western
countries that did not take any steps against the terrorist
organization PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party]. Erdogan, who addressed
his party members in Istanbul, said that Turkey lost over 30 people
over the past one month.

"They (PKK terrorists) can not be humans. I condemn the expression
(we recognize PKK as a terrorist organization but…) by the West.
This matter would have no ‘buts’. We do not act emotionally. Just
because we have not acted so, we showed patience, but now, we expect
sanctions," he said.

"Nobody asked nobody’s permission while coming from tens of thousands
of kilometres away to hit Iraq. We do not need anybody’s advise
regarding a military operation into north of Iraq," Erdogan
continued.

"We can not tolerate any operations that would damage Iraq’s
territorial integrity. We are not keen on any operations on its
political unity," he added.

[The commercial and independent-in-content Istanbul NTV Online in
Turkish [1] adds at 1345 gmt: "The democrats are
hurting the future of the United States. We will not be deterred. Let
the relations break from where they are thin. The Foreign Affairs
Committee is dragging the United States to a different adventure if
it can have the Armenian Patriarch address the meeting just because
he is the world’s Armenian Patriarch. On the other hand, however,
Patriarch Mutafyan goes from here to there and they do not listen to
him. We are undertaking the necessary initiative. We do not want the
bill to pass from the House of Representatives. We will take the
necessary steps, continue on our path."]