LETTERS TO THE EDITOR OF THE ECONOMIST

3 -5 November 2007
Print Edition

The Economist articles that gave rise to these letters follow them as two separate posts and the drivel from the Turkish Prime Minister in a recent interview in the USA is also given below.

For further updates, click on http://armenian-genocide.info/

Armenia and Turkey

SIR – You believe that if the American Congress approves a resolution recognising as “genocide” the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915, it would jeopardise Turkey's path towards the West and alienate a vital ally (“A resolution too far”, October 20th). After the second world war West Germany was also a vital ally and keeping it on side was crucial. Nevertheless, West Germany was encouraged to recognise the Holocaust and compensate the victims of Nazi crimes. It did so and evolved into a democratic society. Surely the victims of the Ottoman Turks have the same rights as the victims of Nazi Germany. Double standards are always unfair. Encouraging Turkey to recognise its past mistakes can only benefit Turkish society.
Andreas Lianeris
Athens

SIR – Did you oppose resolutions condemning the Holocaust because German participation was needed in NATO? Were you against resolutions condemning Japanese war crimes because America needed bases in Japan? Opposition to the present resolution because America needs access to Turkish bases to fight the Iraq war is no less craven.
David Book
Monterey, California

SIR – It is wrong to imply that because only 3% of Armenians listed the genocide as a priority in a poll it is not of significant concern to the Armenian people (“Unearthing the past, endangering the future”, October 20th). Given high inflation and unemployment, the people of Armenia may well be more worried about securing their daily bread, but I can attest that the Armenian genocide is a fundamental part of national and individual identity.
Arman Satchyan
Los Angeles

Extract from National Pres Club interview on 5 November 2007

MODERATOR: Regarding the resolution regarding Armenia that the House had considered voting on, but has delayed, if you don't -- if you say that what happened during that time has to be studied, it has been studied to some degree, certainly. What is your personal belief as to what happened? If it was not genocide, what was it?

ERDOGAN (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Well, I don't know who looked at which document, because if that was done, we would have received a response to our appeal. And they don't have documents.
I'll tell you something now. There is no genocide here. What took place was called deportation. Because that was a very difficult time. It was the time of war, in 1915.
This was about the time when there was rebellion in different parts of the empire. And there were groups of people in the empire who were actually -- Armenians included -- were known to be very loyal subjects of the empire.
But given the context of the time and the events that took place at that time, there was provocation by some other countries and the Armenians became part of the rebellion in those years.
And so, the government of the time provided them even pocket money and started deporting the Armenian citizens at that time to other parts of the empire.
And we have documents in our own archives which attest to this fact. There are all sorts of instructions about how many people are to be sent from one area to another, how much money is to be paid to them, as pocket money as they travel.
So we have all those documents.

ERDOGAN (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): So what we say is: Those who counter those arguments must come up with their own documents. But there is no document that they can show.

MODERATOR: Why do you think this issue -- this historic issue keeps coming up again and again?

ERDOGAN (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): This is a problem of the Armenian Diaspora. The Armenian Diaspora is looking for a way to create some sort of benefit for itself, and this is what they have found.
If it works, then they look to achieve some gains from it. If not, the world will have lost a lot of time.