US AND TURKISH INTERESTS COLLIDING OVER THE ARMENIAN MATTER
By Jamila Qadir (Issues)
Khaleej Times
Oct 22 2007
United Arab Emirates
THE so-called Armenian genocide has always been a loose change in
dirty global political games of superpowers, something akin to Monika
Levinski, who kept her stained dress for years to make use of it at
the right time.
The Armenian card was played during World War I by Britain, France
and Russia against Turkey. More recently Soviet Russia played the same
card against Soviet Azerbaijan, which dared ask for independence and
the right to control its own oil reserves.
There is also a little known case of the same game played by Tsarist
Russia against the Azerbaijani population of the Russian Empire again
(surprise, surprise!) in 1905 when the latter’s foundations were
shaken after its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and the following
revolution of 1905.
Or another not very popular case – Armenian-Azerbaijani War of
1918-1920, when British troops occupied the newly established
democratic oil-rich Azerbaijan, following the defeat of the Ottoman
Empire in World. The latest addition to this list is no different.
Recently US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where the Democrats
have the majority, passed a resolution condemning the "Armenian
Genocide" in the Ottoman Empire.
The resolution N 106, which could be brought up for a vote next month,
supports what Armenians for nearly a century have been clamouring for.
Lately, Turkey has committed a number of serious "mistakes". Earlier
this month Turkey assured the Damascus government it would not
let Israel use its airspace to strike Syria after an Israeli raid
heightened tension in the Middle East.
"Turkey will not let Turkish territory or airspace be used in any
activity that could harm the security or safety of Syria," Turkish
Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said after meeting Syrian President
Bashar Al Assad in Damascus.
The two countries have built closer security and economic ties in
recent years despite persisting water disputes and past Syrian support
for Kurdish rebels.
Moreover, late last month, Turkey and Iraq agreed on an accord that
would reportedly allow Turkish forces to cross into Iraq to pursue
separatist Kurdish rebels, according to media reports.
The congressional resolution came as the Turkish parliament was
debating authorising a military campaign into northern Iraq to root out
rebels who seek a unified, independent nation for Kurds in the region.
On October 9, Turkey’s prime minister gave the green light for possible
military action in northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels there,
drawing a warning from the US, which fears wider regional instability.
US officials have urged Turkey not to send troops and appealed for
a diplomatic solution with Iraq. The Kurdish self-rule region in
northern Iraq is one of the country’s few relatively stable areas
and the Kurds here are also a longtime US ally. But Turkey was adamant.
Washington has warned Ankara against an incursion into northern Iraq,
wary that it may destabilise a relatively peaceful (!) region of
the country and fuel tensions between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds,
staunch US allies.
Interestingly, Turkey was one of the first countries in the world
to recognise the neighbouring Armenia’s independence in 1991,
but relations between the two states soured following the Armenian
occupation of the western provinces of Azerbaijan; particularly the
disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent territories
close to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Another serious issue surrounds the events of 1915-17, when actions by
the Ottoman Young Turks led to the forced deportations and related
deaths of an estimated 300,000 (according to Ottoman archives)
to 600,000 (according to Arnold J Toynbee, an intelligence officer
of the British Foreign Office during the World War I), and up to
1,500,000 (according to Armenian resources) ethnic Armenians in what
some scholars and countries recognise as the "Armenian Genocide".
The Turkish government rejects the notion that these events constituted
a genocide, and instead states the deaths, in the waning days of the
Ottoman Empire during the World War I, were a result of disease,
famine and inter-ethnic strife; particularly citing the massacres
committed by the Armenian Dashnak and Henchak rebels backed by the
Russian Army in Eastern Anatolia, in which thousands of ethnic Turks
and Kurds were killed.
In the recent years, however, large numbers of Armenian workers, some
70,000, have moved to Turkey, around 40,000 in Istanbul alone. This
in addition to some 100,000 Armenians who have been living in Turkey
permanently for decades despite the "genocide".
Interestingly, a map compiled by Armenians and found from the archives
of the Ottoman Empire by Turkish historian Chezmi Yurtsever, refutes
the so-called Armenian genocide.
According to the academic, the map compiled by the Armenian
Mekhitarists monastery on the island of San Lazzaro (Saint Lazarus)
near Venice, Italy, shows that the number of Armenians living in the
Ottoman Empire in the years 1832-1896 was 1.2 million.
This figure proves that the allegations of killing of 1.5 million out
of 2.5 million Armenians who so they say lived in Turkey during the
World War I and the statements about the so-called Armenian genocide
are baseless, Turkish media reported earlier this year.
The Turkish historian said that the archives records on the number
and composition of the population in the Ottoman Empire before 1916
also shows that the allegations of Armenians are false.
Ironically, Armenia itself had conducted a policy of ethnic cleansing
in early ’90s of last century, killing thousands of ethnic Azerbaijanis
living both in Armenia and Azerbaijan and expelling more than a
million of Azerbaijanis from their lands. Suffice to recall the
Khojaly Massacre of 1992.
So, what is the bottom line? Sadly for Armenians, the bottom line is
that they will have to wait for another "appropriate" chance to push
their far-fetched case.
Now, what will be the Turkish response apart from recalling its
ambassador from and cancelqling an official visit to the US? How it
will reflect on the Iraqi and Afghani military campaigns?
Looks like Americans are in deep trouble. Turkey is their main ally in
this region, while Kurds are main US supporters in Iraq. The question
is to be or not to be. The question is with who to be and it requires
an unerring answer.
Turkey has good reasons to blame the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK,
for terrorism, which means retaliation on Kurdish terrorists is in line
with the global war with terrorism that the US is sort of fighting.
Obviously, Kurds, who will have support from their Syrian and Iranian
counterparts as well as their country’s President Jalal Talabani,
who also happens to be a Kurd himself, will resist and the military
operation against them will not be an easy or a swift one.
This means a wider regional military conflict and as a result
might lead to a final break-up of Iraq into Kurdish, Shia and Sunni
territories. And this means a new war to alter oil-rich regions.
Perhaps, this scenario suits the US, which wants to create an
independent Kurdistan, not because it cares for Kurds, but because
the bulk of the Iraqi oil reserves are located in the Iraqi Kurdistan.
As you would expect, any help in creation of an independent Kurdish
state will make Kurds faithful servitors of the US at least until
the last barrel is pumped out of the Iraqi soil.
If so, this might lead to completely new and different ways of
transportation of the Iraqi oil and accordingly to new American
interests and presence in the region for decades to come.
Jamila Qadir is a senior reporter with Khaleej Times