• Dylan Robertson

The Canadian government is again blaming Azerbaijan for escalating tensions in its Nagorno-Karabakh region, saying it is concerned about the “deteriorating humanitarian situation” for Armenians living in that region.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but it is mostly populated by Armenians, and neighbouring Armenia has fought for control of the region for decades.

Tensions rose in the area last fall, when the region’s main access road was blocked by groups of people suspected of being affiliated with the Azerbaijan government, and then by officials who have limited vehicle access.

Azerbaijan insists the region isn’t under a blockade, despite Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch saying food and essentials are severely restricted.

Last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it’s been denied access to all routes into the region, resulting in shortages for medicine, food and baby formula.

Canada is planning on sending two officials to support a European monitoring mission that is aiming to prevent another war in the region.

The Red Cross expressed alarm about Azerbaijan’s blocking of the area shortly after that country’s foreign ministry cited the group’s access to the area as proof that there was no blockade.

The Red Cross said last week it has been able to evacuate “more than 600 people in urgent need of medical care since December 2022,” but still has trouble accessing the region in order to provide medical services.

Global Affairs Canada said in a social media post Tuesday that Azerbaijan should comply with the International Court of Justice’s order to allow the “unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo” into the region.

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry noted that the court order still allows for the inspection of vehicles entering the territory, and has alleged that the route has been used by elements affiliated with Armenia to smuggle weapons into the area.

Canadian MPs heard testimony in January about limited access to the region, but the House of Commons foreign affairs committee hasn’t completed its study or issued an interim report on how Canada should respond.

The federal government plans to open an embassy in Armenia shortly, and Liberal officials often attend Armenian diaspora events.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 4, 2023.

When the Soviet Union suddenly dissolved in 1991, the West responded by unanimously extending full and immediate diplomatic recognition to the 15 republics that had emerged from the ruins of the vanished empire. 

That included Israel, as one country on the Western side of the transition, and Azerbaijan as one of the new republics on the opposite side. Jerusalem recognised the Caucasian republic on Christmas Day, 1991. However, unlike the rest of the West, whose concerns at that time focused mainly on remaking the international system’s broader arrangements, Israel was particularly focused on retrieving the Jews of the former Eastern Bloc. 

Part of those efforts included the creation of a route for direct flights between Baku and Tel Aviv. This actually happened a full half-a-year before Azerbaijan’s formal independence, through a deal between its Soviet-era government and the Jewish state. 

It was the beginning of an improbable and elaborate relationship that, 32 years on, constitutes Israel’s strongest alliance anywhere across the Muslim world. 

Baku’s role ended up being relatively marginal to the process of bringing nearly 1 million former Soviet Jews to Israel between 1989 and 2004 – most boarded direct flights from Russia and Ukraine. 

Yet the Baku-Tel Aviv flights laid the foundations for a commercial arrangement that was begging to happen: Israel had no oil, and Azerbaijan had vast petroleum fields in the Caspian Sea, and along its shores. Moreover, the distance between the two countries is short, about the distance between Melbourne and Brisbane. Israel’s previous Middle Eastern oil supply had come from Iran, but this had ended abruptly in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution, forcing Israel to seek energy from distant, and thus costly, alternative suppliers, such as Mexico and Venezuela. 

During the Cold War, Azerbaijani supply and Israeli demand could not meet – but the new world order post-1991 made their encounter possible, not only because capitalism had suddenly become the international consensus, but because Azerbaijan sorely needed cash. Azerbaijani oil thus began reaching Israel, and Baku has been a steady, major supplier of Israeli energy ever since. 

Israel does not publish figures concerning its oil imports, but experts believe Azerbaijan is its largest supplier, averaging around 40% of the Jewish state’s crude imports annually. Traffic on this axis has been so lively that, in 2006, Israel’s then-infrastructure minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer attended the inauguration of the Azeri-Georgian-Turkish pipeline which has since brought Azerbaijani petroleum to fuel millions of Israel cars. 

The energy relationship paved the way for commercial traffic in the opposite direction. Israeli firms built Azerbaijan’s telephone system and Israeli consultants were hired to upgrade Azeribaijani agriculture. 

However, the main traffic would be in the military sphere. 

It was this aspect of the relationship that was most on show when Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant made a very high-profile visit to Baku on July 13-14, meeting President Ilham Aliyev, Defence Minister Zakir Hasanov and other senior defence officials. The defence and security relationship between Baku and Jerusalem is already long, broad and deep, and looks set to get even more intensive and extensive, reflecting both countries’ growing concerns about the behaviour of Azerbijan’s neighbour, Iran, and its proxies.

In 1991, compelled to build an army, an air force and a navy pretty much from scratch, Azerbaijan sorely needed both hardware and know-how – which Israel happily offered. Preliminary deals were struck quickly, and multi-billion-dollar purchases of Israeli defence products followed over subsequent years.

Israeli arms deals are not officially reported, but one particularly sizeable deal with Azerbaijan – US$1.6 billion (A$2.35b) worth of drones, missile interceptors and anti-missile systems – was confirmed by Israeli officials in 2012 in response to an Associated Press report. 

Another deal, whereby Israel Shipyards built 14 coastguard and assault vessels for Azerbaijan’s navy over the past decade, was reported by the website Israel Defense this July. 

In 2016, while hosting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Baku, President Ilham Aliyev said publicly that his country had signed US$5 billion (A$7.35b) worth of arms deals with Israel. The deals reportedly range from submachine guns and artillery barrels to radars and avionics.  

In early 2022, during a visit to Baku, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen confirmed reports that Israel Air Industries will supply Azerbaijan with two satellites. The deal is reportedly worth US$120 million (A$176.53m). 

Some of this vibrant activity involves the presence of Israeli experts in Azerbaijan, most notably on the naval vessels which were built in Azerbaijan under Israeli supervision. 

Overall, these deals reflect a unique geographic position and strategic predicament that both sets Azerbaijan apart from other post-Soviet republics, and drives its special relations with Israel. 

Straddling a 700-kilometre coastline along the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan is wedged between Russia and Iran, two historic powers which have, over the centuries, taken turns dominating the multi-ethnic Caucasus region, where Azeris are the single largest nationality. Suspicion of both Moscow and Teheran is therefore both a foundation of the Azeri worldview and a pillar of Baku’s foreign policy. 

Moscow’s shadow thickened in 2008, when the Russian army attacked Azerbaijan’s northwestern neighbor Georgia and occupied about a fifth of its land – land which it holds to this day. 

The Iranian threat stems from a mixture of ideological and ethnic differences. Most Azeris are Shi’ite Muslims, but they are generally secular and see their Shi’ite neighbour’s fundamentalism as a menace. 

While they have a common religious history, the two societies are racially unrelated – Iranians are primarily Persian while Azeris are a Turkic people. Azerbaijan’s secularist and Western outlook was made plain following its independence, when it chose to adopt the Latin script rather than the Persian-Arabic or Cyrillic alternatives. 

Moreover, an estimated one-quarter of Iranians are ethnic Azeris, constituting the country’s largest minority, and most are concentrated in northern Iran, and are thus contiguous with Azerbaijan. Although Iranian Azeris have never actively challenged the regime, the ayatollahs fear some kind of a future link-up between the two. 

A statement last November by Azerbaijan’s President concerning the Azeri minority in Iran, asserting that “their security, their rights and well-being are of the utmost importance to us,” and vowing “we will continue to do everything to help the Azerbaijanis who have found themselves cut off from our state,” only exacerbated Iranian fears. 

Iran is also suspicious of Azerbaijan due to its alliance with Turkey, which is ethnically and linguistically close to the Azeris, and has backed Azerbaijan throughout its ongoing three-decade conflict with Armenia. The prospect of a Turkic belt stretching from Istanbul to Central Asia is a major nightmare for Iran.

This, in brief, is the context in which Iran has taken sides against Azerbaijan in its ongoing territorial and ethnic conflict with its neighbour to the west, Armenia. Last year, responding to a Turkish-Azeri plan to establish a transport corridor that would bypass Armenian checkpoints, Iran opened a consulate in the southern Armenian town of Kapan, sparking Azeri protests. 

From Israel’s point of view, the Iranian aspect of Azerbaijan’s situation has turned a vibrant trade partnership into a major strategic asset. 

Azerbaijan has reportedly allowed Israel to use its territory for clandestine activity inside Iran, and potentially to use its airbases in case of a military confrontation between the Jewish state and Iran. Considering that Teheran is more than 1,500 kilometres away from Tel Aviv, Azerbaijan’s proximity to Iran would be invaluable in the event of a military clash between Israel and Iran. 

Over the years, the Azeris have become increasingly open about their special relationship with Israel – so much so that this past March, Baku opened an embassy in Tel Aviv, something it had previously avoided out of fear of a hostile response from parts of the Muslim world, most importantly, Iran. An Iranian rebuke of Baku indeed resulted, but Azerbaijan’s Government didn’t care. 

The relationship is a success story in many ways, yet Israel’s ties with Azerbaijan carry a price tag, and it’s hefty. 

First, the authoritarian government in Baku has been accused of broad human rights violations repeatedly over recent years. One Israeli critic, blogger Alexander Lapshin, was arrested in 2016 in Belarus, at Azerbaijan’s request, after writing critically about the regime following a visit to Azerbaijan. Lapshin was indeed extradited back to Azerbaijan, sentenced and jailed before receiving a presidential pardon the following year. 

Secondly, the alliance with Baku comes at the expense of Israel’s relationship with Armenia, especially after Israeli-supplied drones played a role in fighting last year that ended with an Armenian defeat. 

Israel has stopped short of taking a diplomatic side in the Azerbaijan-Armenia territorial dispute, but the deployment of Israeli hardware against Armenian troops has angered Armenians. Then again, as Iranian allies, the Armenians recognise that they are flying in the face of Israel’s interests, just as Israel’s relationship with Baku is negatively affecting Armenia’s interests. 

It’s been this way for centuries in the Caucasus, where myriad tribes and nations wrestled and traded with each other, while exploiting the rivalries of the surrounding powers to manoeuvre against their local enemies. For better and worse, Israel has found itself part of that long-standing Caucasian struggle. 

https://aijac.org.au/australia-israel-review/baku-to-the-future/?fbclid=IwAR0bPEHnk6ZQ2CZtzG-CGdPJYStm9UAhu74uIyz688H3y5W8teum9pBSxTU

Disney+ has pulled its upcoming series about the life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, sparking widespread outrage from the Turkish government, opposition, and civil society.

Disney’s decision to cancel the series “Atatürk,” which was planned to be broadcast on the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic, came after the Armenian Committee of America (ANCA) called for the cancellation of the show, criticising the company for “glorifying a dictator.” That fueled the debate that it was a politically motivated move.

The company has allegedly said that the decision has “nothing to do with the Armenian Committee” and will be aired on “Fox TV.” But that has not been sufficient to stop the outrage in Türkiye, as the authorities, including the media watchdog, have been involved.

It is shameful for Disney+ to subjugate itself to hate speech against Türkiye and its founding leader while managing to unite the overwhelming majority in the country in all political segments. But what actually happened?

Disney+ is the digital platform of the Walt Disney Company, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. This year, with the proposal of the Turkish representative office, they decided to make a 6-episode series and a movie about Atatürk to mark the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Türkiye.

The series was to be shown on Fox TV Turkey in partnership with Disney+ and in cinemas on November 3.

Meanwhile, Disney+ ended foreign productions in early July 2023, citing losses. This was not a decision specific to Türkiye, it caused reactions in all contracted countries, but it had a special impact on Türkiye because of the Atatürk series.

In response, company officials said that the decision would not affect the production of Atatürk, which they had spent millions of dollars to complete.

That’s when the Armenian American Committee (ANCA) escalated its campaign. They accused the company of glorifying Atatürk by attributing war crimes and even genocide to his name. What they have been calling as crimes was Türkiye’s War of Independence.

When Disney+ said they would not broadcast it, they took it on as if they were undertaking an action.

Disney+ spokespersons stated that it will be shown on Fox TV and in cinemas. Their justification was far from convincing because the initial aim was to show it globally, to remind the world and young generations of Atatürk and the 1923 Republican Revolution.

In the end, the widespread opinion is that the Disney+ management has bowed to the influential Armenian lobby in Hollywood, ignored Türkiye’s intense reaction, and sacrificed the huge Turkish market for this cause.

The extent of the issue has already exceeded the decision of a company to give up the profits of a production that it has spent time, effort, and money on and to downgrade the production’s screening league. The reactions of mainstream opposition parties such as the CHP and IYI Party, and civil society organisations sensitive to Atatürk, the Republic, and secularism are natural.

This time, President Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP administration have also claimed the Atatürk series. A rare case of the opposition and the government uniting on the issue of Atatürk.

Ebubekir Şahin, the chairman of the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) stated that the council will ask for a defence from the channel authorities because the Atatürk series will not be shown on the Disney+ platform. It shows how politicised the issue has become.

There are media reports that Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Director of National Intelligence İbrahim Kalın also intervened in the process. AKP Spokesperson Ömer Çelik also condemned the decision to cancel the broadcast as a shameful disrespect to “the values of the Republic of Türkiye and our nation”.

To attribute the AKP’s seeming embrace of Atatürk in the case of Disney+ and the Atatürk series to “the Armenian issue” alone would be quite inadequate to explain the issue in all its dimensions.

It took Erdoğan and the AKP leadership some time to realise the depth of love and respect for Atatürk in all segments of society. MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli’s suggestions that Atatürk should no longer be an issue embraced only by the mainstream opposition, such as the CHP and the IYI Party, have also played a role in this. But it is a start that the AKP leadership also feels obliged to embrace Atatürk, albeit on this occasion.

On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that the Armenian Committee (ANCA) is the diaspora organisation that strongly opposes the Nikol Pashinyan administration’s attempts to reconcile with Azerbaijan and Türkiye, and that it has partnered with the Greek lobby in the US Congress to oppose the sale of F-16s to Türkiye. The weakening of their remote control over Armenia is the Diaspora’s nightmare.

This is one of the reasons why they have been attacking Atatürk and Türkiye in such a vicious manner, which they have so far kept out of the 1915 genocide allegations.

Now let me return to my efforts to cancel my Disney+ subscription.

https://yetkinreport.com/en/2023/08/02/a-shame-disney-cancels-ataturk-series-after-armenian-committees-call/

A campaign calling on people to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions has been launched in Turkey, after the streaming service decided not to release a television series about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the republic’s founding father.

According to reports in Turkish newspapers, Disney+ decided against releasing Ataturk after lobbying from groups including the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), which has branded the programme an “intensely controversial TV series glorifying genocidal Turkish dictator Mustafa Kemal Ataturk”.

Opposition to the series has garnered a lot of attention in Turkey, partly because while Ataturk was accused of carrying out massacres of Armenians during the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1923), there is a lack of publicly available evidence linking him to the mass deportation and killing of Armenians in 1915 during the Ottoman Empire, an event now largely recognised as genocide.

Last month, Disney+ Turkey announced that the Ataturk series would soon air, to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. Ataturk is a revered figure in Turkey and his portrayal is a sensitive matter. The streaming platform has not responded to the latest reports. 

The chairman of Turkey’s television watchdog RTUK, Ebubekir Sahin, announced an official probe in response to the controversy, stating that Ataturk holds significant importance as a social figure. 

Politicians, including Omer Celik, spokesperson for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, condemned Disney’s reported decision not to stream the series, deeming it “shameful” and “disrespectful”.

In a statement on Wednesday, Walt Disney Turkey said that it had revised its content distribution strategy to reach a wider audience, stating that the Ataturk series will be aired as a special version of a documentary on the Fox television channel in Turkey, followed by two separate films to be shown in cinemas.

“As part of the centenary celebrations, we’re proud to announce that we will be bringing Ataturk to even more people from October through free to air Fox. Followed then by a theatrical window where people can experience both Film One and Film Two on the big screen,” Saner Ayar, the producer, was quoted as saying in the Walt Disney Turkey statement.

The decision not to stream the series on Disney’s global platform sparked anger among Turkish Twitter users, leading to a campaign encouraging the cancellation of Disney+ subscriptions. Prominent figures, including politicians, artists and journalists, publicly announced their cancellations in solidarity.

Mustafa Sandal, a famous singer, tweeted: “I did the right thing and cancelled. Now it’s your turn! If Ataturk does not exist, we do not exist! Go to another country Disney+ # CancelDisney.”

Serdar Kilic, a Turkish ambassador in charge of his country’s normalisation process with Armenia, shared a screenshot that showed he had cancelled his subscription.

In June, Disney removed numerous shows and movies from Disney+ to reduce ongoing residuals and its tax bill. This strategy also resulted in the removal of eight Turkish TV shows and movies produced exclusively for Disney’s Turkish streaming platform, with the suspension of new Turkish content launches.

According to Flix Patrol, a site that tracks streaming service data, Disney+ had approximately 50,000 subscribers in Turkey in June, while its main competitor, Netflix, boasts at least 2.6 million subscribers.

Reacting to the controversy, Huseyin Yayman, chairman of the Turkish parliament’s Digital Channels Commission, threatened severe sanctions against Disney.

“We will impose harsh fines, including licence cancellation for Disney+, bandwidth reduction, and advertising bans,” he said on Thursday, claiming that Disney’s decision may have political motives.

Local media outlets revealed that Disney Plus’s decision has caused wide controversy among Turks who called to stop subscribing the platform taking into consideration the position of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, in the hearts of Turks.

The head of the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), Ebubekir Şahin announced that the council will be launching a probe into Disney Plus’s cancellation of the Atatürk series.

“Based on the information circulating in the public that the digital media service provider, Disney+, decided not to broadcast the domestic content series ‘Atatürk’ on its platform, the defense of the institution will be heard, and an investigation will be initiated. Our founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, is the most crucial social value of the Republic of Türkiye. Allegations of interference by the Armenian lobby, as reported in the press, are being meticulously investigated,” Şahin posted.

Turks continue to vent their rage and cancel subscriptions by the thousands to Disney’s digital streaming platform, Disney+, after the entertainment giant decided not to air a highly anticipated series on the life of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The hashtag #Disneyiptalet — Turkish for “cancel Disney” — was top trending Thursday for the third day in a row since news of the cancellation emerged. Disney is thought to have caved to pressure from the US-based Armenian lobby, which has been campaigning for the six-part show to be axed.

Armenians, Greeks and Kurds across the globe are furious that the period drama whitewashes as they see things the carnage Ataturk oversaw as he forged a new nation from the remains of the Ottoman Empire — and mainly at their expense. Turks are every bit as furious that their revered leader is being accused of such sins. A spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) called Disney’s move “a disgrace.”  

Turkey’s state broadcasting watchdog, RTUK, announced Wednesday that it had launched a probe “based on the public information” that Disney+ had decided to pull the biopic. “Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of our Republic of [Turkey], is our most important social value,” RTUK head Ebubekir Sahin said. 

Last month, Disney+ Turkey announced it would be airing the series on Oct. 29 to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the Republic.

The company has since scrambled to staunch the damage, saying it will air the show as a documentary on the Fox Channel television station in Turkey and as two separate films in movie theaters. The statement has had little impact, with Turkish celebrities and politicians — including members of the main opposition Republican People’s Party founded by Ataturk — leading the chorus of protest.

Many say that none of this should come as a surprise, as Disney should have known better than to venture into such a minefield.

“Turkey is an increasingly controversial country in Western politics. Disney is a US-based company. It was inevitable that a production about a great Turkish leader would spark controversy abroad,” said Selim Koru, editor of the KulturKampf newsletter and an analyst at The Economic and Research Foundation of Turkey, an Ankara-based think tank.

“Even if Disney ends up releasing its production, it’s probably going to run into domestic criticism. Turkish viewers are unlikely to be satisfied with an American production of so sensitive a topic,” Koru told Al-Monitor. “It’s really not rocket science. Disney should have known better.”

James Jeffrey, a former US ambassador to Turkey and head of the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program, agrees. “Ataturk for almost all Turks is still seen as a combination of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — the Ottoman soldier who won the iconic Dardanelles campaign then later liberated the nascent Turkish Republic from Russian, French, Italian, Greek and British invaders,” Jeffrey said.

Numerous world leaders have hailed Ataturk for his statesmanship, among them Winston Churchill. “The tears which men and women of all classes shed upon his bier were a fitting tribute to the life work of a man at once the hero, the champion and the father of modern Turkey,” the former British prime minister wrote of his Turkish contemporary and erstwhile foe.

For most Turks young and old, if it had not been for Ataturk, there would be no Turkey. To show their gratitude, every Nov. 10 at 9:05 a.m. — the date and time marking Ataturk’s passing 85 years ago — millions of Turks across the country observe a minute of silence. Traffic halts and sirens blare to honor Ataturk’s memory.

“Ataturk Envy”?

The AKP and some of its supporters might have reacted differently a decade ago to Disney’s missteps.

Turkey’s Islamists have long reviled Ataturk as “an enemy of Islam,” a “drunk” and a crypto-Jew for abolishing the caliphate, forcing women to cast off their veils, introducing universal suffrage and switching the alphabet from Arabic to Latin, as he sought to set Turkey on a determinedly pro-Western and secular path. Their feelings were reflected by the late Necip Fazil Kisakurek, an Islamist nationalist poet and a virulent anti-Semite whom Erdogan famously described as his role model. Hugh Pope, a co-author of “Turkey Unveiled” who covered Turkey for many years, suggested in a recent essay for POLITICO that Erdogan suffers from “Ataturk envy.”

Thus it came as no surprise that when the AKP first came to power in 2002, the personality cult erected around Ataturk began to crack. Among these cracks was a burgeoning debate on the once-taboo subject of the Armenian genocide. Turkey denies that more than a million Ottoman Armenians died as a result of a deliberate policy to eradicate them as the empire collapsed. Rather, the official narrative goes, several hundred thousand of them died as a result of starvation and disease as they were forcibly relocated to the Syrian desert in the midst of war in 1915.

The wall of silence around the bloody suppression of Kurdish rebellions, the internment of Jews in labor camps in the 1940s and pogroms against Greeks began to crumble. Ataturk’s role came under scrutiny as Erdogan pushed through a dizzying raft of reforms aimed at securing Turkey’s membership in the European Union. Critics say Erdogan’s true aim was to defang the Turkish military and concentrate power in his own hands. He has largely succeeded. But Ataturk remains as strong as ever.

“The greatest compliment to his legacy is that President Erdogan, the most powerful Turkish leader since Ataturk and ideologically 180 degrees opposite, has had to tolerate and exploit the undying public adoration of ‘Ataturk,’ literally ‘father of the Turks,'” Jeffrey observed.

Jeffrey was alluding to Erdogan’s selective appropriation of Kemalist ideology to justify his increasingly autocratic tilt but also to placate the military. Insulting Ataturk is a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. Fatih Tezcan, an Islamist journalist and diehard Erdogan fan, is among those behind bars for committing the offense.

A Mixed Legacy

Taner Akcam is the most prominent Turkish historian to assert that the Ottomans perpetrated genocide against Armenians, as is widely accepted by numerous governments, international bodies and academics worldwide.

Akcam asserts that Ataturk was directly responsible for successive massacres of Kurds, Alevis and Greeks in the early days of the Republic. Ataturk was not, however, involved in the Armenian genocide, Akcam contends.

“Not only did Mustafa Kemal [Ataturk] have no direct link to the genocide, he also made numerous comments condemning it,” Akcam told Al-Monitor. He labeled the Young Turks who masterminded the bloodletting “murderers” and argued that prosecuting them for their crimes was a political and legal necessity. In interviews that he gave to the Los Angeles Examiner in 1926 and 1927, Ataturk “openly decried the massacres inflicted on Christians during the war years,” Akcam said. Yet, he gave away Armenian properties to Young Turk families and prevented Ottoman Armenians and Greeks displaced by the war from returning to Turkey while “systematically expelling Armenians inside the country,” Akcam added.

Khatchig Mouradian, a professor at Columbia University who has written extensively on the genocide, said, “Ataturk may have not been a perpetrator of the genocide, but he set in motion a vision, policies and practices that consolidated its gains and are nurtured to this day.”

“A portrayal of Ataturk that ignores this legacy is no less brazen than embracing America’s founding fathers without contending with slavery and the genocide of Native Americans,” Mouradian told Al-Monitor.

“If a documentary would approach all these dimensions in a balanced way, it would of course be nice,” Akcam said.

The author is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics at the University of York whose work focuses on post-Soviet politics and Central Asia

ISTANBUL

The prime minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, announced in recent months that the government had stopped their attempts to impose Armenian claims on the 1915 events in the international arena and that they expect the same attitude from the Armenian diaspora. Especially after the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020, a softening and normalization process had begun between Armenia with Türkiye and Azerbaijan. Positive developments in relations progressed until Pashinyan’s attendance at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inauguration ceremony this June. The positive views of the parties towards the current status quo in the region gave hope for regional peace. However, the debates triggered by the Armenian lobby’s propaganda against the Ataturk TV series further revealed the distinction between Armenia and the Armenian diaspora.

Disney’s digital streaming platform, Disney+, made a strong impression on Turkish audiences when it launched in Türkiye in June 2022, by announcing the production of an Ataturk TV series, which resulted in a significant bump in subscribers. However, in recent months, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) openly insulted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Türkiye, on social media and initiated a campaign against the platform due to the production of the series. Shortly after this campaign, local Turkish productions were removed from the website, leading to speculation the Ataturk series had been cancelled. In response to this backlash, the company clarified that the series was not cancelled and would be shown on Fox TV on Oct. 29 and then in movie theaters.

Disney+’s decision to broadcast the Ataturk series exclusively on a channel accessible only from Türkiye, rather than on a global platform, has sparked a growing backlash from the Turkish public. In particular, the fact that the decision was taken under pressure from the Armenian lobby roiled the debate. Turkish users took to social media to say they were cancelling their Disney+ subscriptions. Additionally, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) announced that they will investigate the issue and ask Disney to explain itself. Political party representatives also blasted the Armenian lobby over the issue and cautioned Disney+ to reconsider the decision. The ANCA, on the other hand, announced that their campaign was successful, and they were satisfied with the decision taken by Disney.

Armenian lobby

The Armenian diaspora exerts significant influence in France and Russia, but is considered most organized and effective in the United States due to the opportunities provided by the American political system. The Armenian lobby has seen an increase in its political influence in America since the 1970s, and its presence became more pronounced in 1984 when all Armenian organizations in America united under the Armenian Assembly of America. Their population of approximately 700,000 in the U.S., characterized as a community belonging to Western religion and culture, has allowed them to gain support from American society. Described as a well-organized structure, the Armenian lobby has consistently maintained strong relations with the U.S. Congress.

Though their financial resources and population in America are limited, Armenians have compensated for this situation. Especially their concentration in specific electoral districts and active involvement in election campaigns have turned the Armenian diaspora into an influential community in the U.S. The significant increase in the number of Armenian organizations and the various activities they organized increased the visibility of the Armenian lobby in the country in the early 2000s. Armenian lobbies in the United States seek to contribute to the development of Armenian culture, fostering cultural, historical, and religious ties between the Armenian community and American society, enabling Armenian-Americans’ full political participation in the political system, and actively engaging in domestic politics. The main purpose of this lobby is to reinforce the Armenian claims on the 1915 events and to influence the U.S. politicians and the public to take decisions against Türkiye’s interests.

Armenia vs. Armenian lobby

As a result of the successful policy followed by Azerbaijan and Türkiye in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, which started in September 2020 and lasted for 44 days, the Armenian occupation of the region came to an end. While Azerbaijan liberated its lands that had been occupied for 28 years, the status quo in the South Caucasus also changed. Following these developments, the softening and normalization process between Armenia with Türkiye and Azerbaijan started and continues. So why does the Armenian lobby take such an attitude in such a peace and diplomacy process that started years later?

With a population of 3 million and a troubled economy, Armenia has played an occupying role in Karabakh for years. Although Türkiye has taken steps towards normalization and peace with Armenia, the Armenian diaspora has always been an obstacle. Despite the hardships faced by the Armenian people, the Armenian warlords in the West wanted the war in Karabakh to continue and the hostility towards Türkiye and Azerbaijan to increase. The Diaspora Ministry in Armenia has been a tool of pressure for Armenian politicians. The Armenian diaspora, which is far from both historical and regional realities, has set the course of Armenian politics for many years. Pashinyan’s efforts to distance the diaspora from Armenian politics by following a more realistic policy in recent years led to friction between these two sides.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Türkiye, is a hero and significant value for Turkish society. The backlash from the public and government officials after Disney’s decision clearly show this. Therefore, in response to the lobby that continues to exist as a hate community against Türkiye, more prudent decisions are expected from international companies such as Disney.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu.