NOBEL LAUREATES URGE TURKISH-ARMENIAN DIALOGUE
By Emil Danielyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep
April 9 2007
More than fifty Nobel laureates from around the world appealed to
Armenia and Turkey on Monday to unconditionally establish diplomatic
relations, open their border, and step up contacts between their
civil societies.
In an open letter, they also implicitly urged the Turkish government
to acknowledge that the 1915-1918 mass killings and deportations
of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constituted a genocide. They
endorsed a 2003 independent study which concluded that the slaughter
of an estimated 1.5 Ottoman Armenians fits into the internationally
accepted definition of genocide.
"An open border would greatly improve the economic conditions for
communities on both sides of the border and enable human interaction,
which is essential for mutual understanding," read the joint appeal
signed by 53 prominent academics, writers, economists, and scientists
who have won a Nobel Prize in their respective fields in the last
three decades. Among them is Elie Wiesel, a world-famous Holocaust
survivor, and Frederik de Klerk, a former South African president
who presided over the collapse of apartheid in his country.
The signatories said the Turkish and Armenian governments should ease
their lingering tensions "through additional treaty arrangements
and full diplomatic relations" which they believe would facilitate
bilateral academic links and student exchanges. They also called for
the abolition of an article of the Turkish Penal Code which makes it
a crime to "denigrate Turkishness" and has been used against dissident
intellectuals questioning the official denial of the Armenian genocide.
"Armenia also should reverse its own authoritarian course, allow free
and fair elections, and respect human rights," the laureates added.
Their letter, addressed to "the peoples of Turkey and Armenia,"
was initiated and drafted by David Phillips, a U.S. scholar who runs
the New York-based Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. He is also
known as the former chairman of the U.S.-backed Turkish-Armenian
Reconciliation Commission that operated from 2001-2004.
Speaking to RFE/RL from New York, Phillips said the open letter was
prompted by what he sees as an anti-Armenian nationalist backlash
in Turkey that followed the January 19 murder of Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink. "Whereas initially there was an overwhelming
popular response in support of Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, the
blowback from ultranationalists gives rise to really serious concern
about political trends in Turkey," he said. "So we thought it would
be important for Nobel laureates to join their voices in support of
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, to acknowledge that the events [of
1915] constitute genocide, and to suggest steps that the governments
of Turkey and Armenia can take to improve their bilateral relations."
The outpouring of popular sympathy in Turkey for the slain editor of
the bilingual newspaper Agos raised hopes for a rapprochement between
Ankara and Yerevan. However, the government of Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan made it clear that a normalization of bilateral ties
remains conditional on an halt to the Armenian campaign for genocide
recognition and a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Like many other observers, Phillips linked the Erdogan government’s
refusal to drop those preconditions with Turkey’s upcoming presidential
and parliamentary elections. "The trends in Turkey right now are
negative, and I hope that after they get through this political cycle
cooler heads will prevail and that Turkey’s leaders will take a deep
breath and reflect carefully on what’s in their nationalist interests,"
he said.
According to Phillips, Armenia’s government is also to blame for the
strained ties. "Clearly, the corruption and incompetence of Armenia’s
current political leaders makes it difficult for Armenia to progress
or for Armenian-Turkish relations to develop constructively," he said.
The Nobel prize winners pointed out that the biggest obstacle to
Turkish-Armenian rapprochement is a "huge gap in perceptions over the
Armenian Genocide." They said that in order to address this gap the
two sides should look into a study commissioned by TARC from another
New York-based institution, the International Center for Transitional
Justice (ICTJ), in 2002.
The ICTJ concluded in a February 2003 report that the Armenian
massacres "include all of the elements of the crime of genocide" as
defined by a 1948 United Nations convention. It said at the same time
that the Armenians can not use the convention for making territorial
and other claims against Turkey.
President George W. Bush has repeatedly cited the ICTJ study in his
April 24 messages to the Armenian community in the United States.
John Evans, the former U.S. ambassador to Armenia, likewise pointed to
it when he declared in a February 2005 speech in California that the
"Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of the 20th century."
"The analysis offers a way forward, which addresses the core concerns
of both Armenians and Turks," agreed the signatories of the open
letter.
While stating that their calls will be "noticed" in Armenia and Turkey,
Phillips was pessimistic about prospects for a major improvement in
Turkish-Armenian relations sought by Washington. "It’s hard to envision
dramatic progress given the mediocrity of political leadership in
Yerevan and in Ankara," he said.