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20.06.2011

ON THE MODERN TENDENCIES IN THE “ARMENIAN POLICY” OF TURKEY

   

Ruben Melkonyan

Turkish political machinery periodically adjusts its “Armenian policy” but its essence still remains the same. The ongoing developments come to prove that Turkey tries to use in regard to Armenia and Armeniacy new tactical methods.

Struggle against the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide

It is not a secret that there is an organization in Turkey which elaborates and implements the policy directed against the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide. However, it should be stated that the unvaried policy, which has lasted for decades, has not always been efficient, which makes Turkish political machinery enter some amendments into its activity.

But this does not mean that Turkey is going to abandon its old methods of struggle against the international recognition of the Genocide and those methods are used, though with less intensity. Every year in the period prior to April 24 the delegations of Turkish diplomats are sent to different countries purposing to prevent the usage of terms or acceptance of formulations undesirable for Turkey; high-ranking Turkish officials, diplomats make blackmail or sometimes even rude statements addressed to other states. Alongside, Turkey allots serious financial means to different hireling historians who publish books, articles and etc. denying the Armenian Genocide.

Recently Turkey, taking into consideration the processes in the world and in the country, has been tending alongside with the old “crude” method to elaborate and implement more delicate and flexible policy, which is very often “concealed” by the “pro-Armenian” events. At the same time let us state that some kind of shift is taking place in the consciousness of some individuals in the Turkish society concerning the fact of the Armenian Genocide, which, however, is tried to be directed and coordinated by the Turkish political machinery in the advantageous way. In particular, “We apologize” initiative, which was started at the end of 2008 by a group of representatives of Turkish intelligentsia, raised hell. It stated: “My conscience does not accept indifference and denial of the Mets Eghern, which was perpetrated in regard to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915. I disclaim this injustice and apologize”. This initiative has also transformed into the Internet drive for signatures, which over the short term included about 30 thousand people. Of course this was an unprecedented event for Turkey but, however, after a time it was politicized and even today it still remains (not so explicitly) in the arsenal of the Turkish political machinery. In particular, alongside with a broad resonance on this event the Turkish Foreign Ministry began presenting to the parliaments of different countries the argumentations on inexpediency of the resolutions on the Armenian Genocide, referring to the fact that in Turkey a movement on facing a history had been initiated and adopting of resolutions may impede it.

Of course most of the people who signed the resolution are sincere in their intentions and they share the pain of the Armenians but, at the same time, other circumstances should also be mentioned. First of all one of the main organizers of “We apologize” initiative, the Turkish essayist Baskin Oran in response to the allegation in his address stated: “The authorities of Turkey must pray for our initiative, as due to it the adoption of the resolutions on the Genocide has stopped all over the world”. Another representative of intelligentsia Yavuz Bingol who has also joined the initiative, removed the brackets stating: “We did not use the word “genocide” in the text, and I will never recognize that a genocide was perpetrated in 1915. This event was arranged to remove this issue from the international agenda. I joined it to put an end in this issue and I apologized. It is not hard to apologize”.

Another important issue is that those who apologized are vigorous opponents of any kind of compensations and even in public statements they state that there can be no financial or territorial compensation for 1915. At most Turkey may apologize and thus “the issue must be settled”.

The aforementioned developments fall within the programmes of the Turkish authorities and that is why such events take place without any obstacles and this cannot be a casual in the country where even the most innocuous protest action can be severely suppressed. It means that all this is taking place by approbation of the authorities and is directed by them; it is not a mere chance that the oppositional initiators of those events have rather good connections in the higher echelons of the power. With the help of such initiatives the Turkish authorities also release a tension present in some strata of the society, which is conditioned by the disagreement with the state approach on this issue. And the most important is that on the international arena the image of Turkey is changing and all this is done mostly with the help of the “court oppositionists”.

While speaking about the changes taking place in definite strata of Turkish society in regard to the issue of the Armenian Genocide, different events arranged in the memory of the victims on April 24 in different towns in Turkey should also be mentioned. They are of course remarkable and important, but it should also be taken into consideration that the number of their participants in Turkey which has a population of 75 million is almost unnoticed. E.g. on the event on April 24, 2011 only 300 people gather on the central square Taksim in Istanbul and during the conversation with one of the organizers he said that there could have been about 2000 people but for the fear, i.e. this is the maximum number. It should also be mentioned the majority of the participants are people with the leftist or centrist political views for whom not the national issues but the violation of human rights or other general formulations make the point.

So comparing the facts, we can mention that today in Turkey the change of the consciousness in regard to the Armenian Genocide is taking place not in the broad strata of the society but in a small group of people, which does not make a serious picture in a sense of percentage. All these come to prove that Turkey is seriously preparing to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and the high-ranking officials openly speak about that.

At the same time it should be mentioned that the Armenian party can also win some dividends from the initiated process. E.g. alongside with the process of “changes” in Turkey a serious leakage of information can be observed, books and facts, which has been concealed, are published now. Our purpose is to take advantage of them through filtering.

In the struggle against the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide today the issue of driving a wedge between Armenia and Diaspora is acquiring an important place on the political agenda in Turkey. In particular Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoglu charged his ambassadors in different countries to work closely with the Armenian organizations of Diaspora, even to be present at the anti-Turkish events and try to promote Turkish theses, and, which is the most important, to attempt to drive a wedge between Armenia and Diaspora. Alongside with the behind-the-scenes measures Turkey also implements public actions and the latest of them was the statement of Erdogan at the spring session of PACE that Armenia was afraid of Diaspora and that was the reason it implemented such a tough policy in regard to Turkey. By the way, such statements of Erdogan are not a new phenomenon: previously he stated that Armenia was a hostage of the Diaspora. Applying the methods of disinformation Turkey attempts to create artificial problems and barriers between Armenia and Diaspora. But it is sad that disinformation or lie from the Turkish press is very often simply translated and appears in the Armenian mass media without any filtration and in fact we fall in the Turkish information trap.

“Stable growth” of Armenophobia in Turkey

There are numerous facts witnessing growing anti-Armenian moods, and it is natural that those moods play a determining role in the political processes too. According to the result of the recent public opinion polls, 73% of population of Turkey thinks extremely badly about Armenians. Despite the aforementioned superficial changes, today chauvinist hysteria, which can be observed in different spheres of public and political life, predominates in Turkey.

On April 24, 2011 in one of the military units stationed nearby Sasun province, the Armenian soldier Sevak Balikcin was killed. At once the official viewpoint that Sevak was killed by recklessness by other soldier was spread. But according to the other sources the Turk soldier who killed the Armenian was a member of the youth wing of radical nationalist group “Grey Wolves”, and most probably Sevak was another victim of pan-Turkists.

The upcoming parliamentary elections in Turkey make political figures toughen chauvinist rhetoric directed to increasing their authority among the electorate. In this very context the fact that none of the political party included candidates of the Armenian origin in its lists should be considered. Let us remind that the possibility of including Armenian candidates in those lists had been a subject for discussion for quite a long time but a high level of Armenophobia in Turkish society made the political powers abstain from the step, which would directly affect their authority during the elections.

Recently the monument, which was placed in Kars and symbolized the so-called Armenian-Turkish friendship, has appeared in the spotlight of international mass media and political figures. The prime-minister Erdogan called this monument awful during his electoral campaign and ordered to dismantle it. It should be mentioned that before this scandalous statement this monument was not widely known, and the prime-minister, bringing fame to it, made it a tool of political technologies. Criticizing the monument symbolizing the so-called Armenian-Turkish friendship Erdogan satisfied the chauvinist moods of the Azerbaijanis living in Kars region. The point is that on the eve of the parliamentary elections the ruling Justice and Development party fights for attracting electorate of the Nationalist Movement party, i.e. it has to include in its campaign obviously chauvinist shades. It can be stated that the chauvinist shade to the JDP campaign was attached by the ballyhoo caused by this monument.


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