Turkish Propaganda in overdrive‏

Hurreyet Daily News

Let’s be honest on genocide
Mustafa AKYOL
Tuesday, March 9, 2010

In all this perpetual controversy about the tragic fate of the Ottoman Armenians,

there is something that I, as a Turk, don’t like: its unethical politics.

Most non-Turks, and especially Westerners, honestly believe that what happened

was genocide. In return, our lobbyists in Washington, or elsewhere, argue about

how angry we Turks will be to hear that opinion, and how important a “strategic

ally” we are to be pissed off.

In other words, we try to counter a historical narrative by political pressure.

Maybe that is inevitable, for the issue is highly politicized on the Armenian side

as well. But, personally speaking, I am more interested in the truth of the matter

than anything else. And, believe me, if I am convinced one day that what really

happened to the Armenians in 1915 amounted to genocide, I will say it out loud.

When Empires fall apart:
Yet I am not convinced. I rather take the view that Norman Stone, professor

emeritus of modern history at the University of Oxford, put in his piece in The

Times the other day: “You cannot really describe this as genocide... if by that you

mean the sort of thing [Adolf] Hitler did.”

Professor Stone also added: “Horrors, of course, happened but these same

horrors were visited upon millions of Muslims [and Jews] as the Ottoman Empire

receded in the Caucasus and the Balkans. Half of its urban population came from

those regions and, in many cases, the disasters of their families occurred at

Armenian hands.”

This background of 1915, of which most Westerners are clueless, is key to getting

the story right. The drama started a century ago, when the winds of nationalism

entered into the multi-national Ottoman Empire. Its peoples, first in the Balkans and

later elsewhere (as now in the Kurdish areas), started to aspire for national

homelands, and, one by one, launched rebellions to achieve national independence.

The latter were joyful moments of liberation for the new nations. But for others,

they were nightmares. “Serbia for the Serbs, Bulgaria for the Bulgarians, Greece for

the Greeks,” a popular slogan of the early 20th century read, “Turks and Jews out!”

The latter, and especially the much more numerous Turks, a term which then often

referred to all Ottoman Muslims, faced several tides of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans,

the Caucasus and the Crimea. According to some estimates, more than five million

Ottoman Muslims lost their lives in these regions between 1821 and 1922.

(See: Justin McCarthy’s book, “Death and Exile”.) Some were killed in wars, others

perished as refugees from starvation and disease. The ones who could make it to

Turkey proper, including my own great-great-grandfather from the northern Caucasus,

brought with them the stories of the cruelty of the enemy.

The reason why no congress considers resolutions about these perished Ottoman

Muslims today is simply that there are very few people who remember them – and the

ones who do really have no means to lobby in Washington on Paris.

But the Young Turks who ruled the Ottoman Empire in 1915 was of a generation that

went through all that drama. Hence they had gradually lost faith in the centuries-old

Ottoman creed: People of different faiths and ethnicities can live well together. When

they unwisely entered the Great War on the side of Germany, they faced Russian

invasion in the east, and found out that the some Armenian nationalists had formed

paramilitary units to support the enemy. They feared that an independent Armenia

would be founded in the east and the Balkan nightmares would be repeated.

That led to the catastrophic decision that the Young Turk government took

in April 1915 to expel all Armenians in Eastern Turkey to Syria. Hundreds of

thousands perished on the road, due to massacres and other atrocities by locals,

along with famine and disease.

There is no way that this ethnic cleansing can be seen as justified or excusable. But we

should see that it is nothing like the Holocaust, by which the Nazis systematically

exterminated the Jews simply out of their hateful ideology. There was no anti-Armenian

ideology in 1915. There was rather a fear: “If we don’t do something against them,

they will do something against us.”

The way to go:
Today, Westerners will do a much better job if they try to see this other side of the story,

and encourage dialogue between Armenians and Turks, rather than pushing the latter into

accepting a definition which they honestly find wrong.

And we Turks will do a much better job if we try to understand, respect and even

share the pain of the Armenians. We might not accept the G-word, for reasons I

noted, but we should accept that 1915 was a horrible episode which caused

enormous suffering to a people who used to be our good neighbors.

Meanwhile, The Armenians, especially the more nationalist ones, should see that

we Turks really are not a nation of monsters who take pride in the killing of

innocents. We were just raised with a totally different national narrative. Yet now

many of us are now ready to show more empathy.

We will even be happy to offer our extended hands to Armenian nationalists, if they are

willing to unclench their fists.

[ the truth and Professor Norman Stone do not mix at all]

Anadolu Agency, Turkey
March 26 2010
Turkish premier meets Armenian community leader

Ankara, 26 March: The leader of Armenian community in Turkey, who was
received by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, described the
incidents of 1915 as "mutual affliction of close friends who were made
hostile to each other," saying there was no need to rake up the past.

Following his meeting with Erdogan in Ankara, Bedros Sirinoglu said,
"my grandfather died during the incidents of 1915. But there is no
need to rake up the past and call it a genocide."

Turkish State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc was also
present at the meeting.

The meeting came three weeks after a voting at the U.S. House Foreign
Affairs Committee that adopted a resolution on Armenian allegations
despite opposition from the Obama Administration and a similar voting
of Swedish Parliament on March 11. They prompted Turkey to recall its
ambassadors to United States and Sweden.

"Incidents of 1915 sowed discord between two close friends who loved
each other," Sirinoglu said.

"It was a row of a hundred years ago and it created mistrust. We have
to forget it and look forward," he said.

Turkey strongly rejects genocide allegations and regards the events as
civil strife in wartime which claimed lives of many Turks and
Armenians.

When asked about the Armenian population before 1915 and today,
Sirinoglu said that the population was 1.5 million at that time.

However, he said a significant part of Armenians migrated to several
countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq and France and added that
both Turkish and Armenian peoples suffered from what happened a
hundred years ago.

"If we dredge up (the incidents of 1915), we will have to stay in
dark," he said.

"It has been a hundred years. No need to hold a grudge. Such things
have happened in the world such as wars. But they have all been
covered up. But I do not know why, these incidents between Turkish
people and Armenians living in Ottoman state are still not covered."

Sirinoglu also said that Armenian people were living safely in Turkey.

Asked if he was hopeful about the protocols signed by Turkey and
Armenian in October 2009 to normalize relations, Sirinoglu said, "I am
hopeful because I believe Turkey and Armenia would learn lessons

from the past."

Sirinoglu also said he apologized to Erdogan for misguiding him about
the number of Armenian citizens living in Turkey.

Earlier this month, Erdogan said 100,000 out of 170,000 Armenians
living in Turkey were not Turkish citizens. He said Turkey could
deport these people living in Turkey illegally.

"There are 20,000 Armenian citizens living in Turkey, not 100,000,"
Sirinoglu said. "Mr. Prime Minister gave credence to our words and
said it was 100,000. I would like to thank him for trusting us. But I
would also like to apologize for misguiding him."

[the Turkish mind-set has not changed: as usual, it is the Armenians at fault.

Sourp Prgich Hospital that Bedros chairs has enormous difficulties in

maintaining the building because of the bureacratic problems thrown

at them by the Turkish authorities]

RFE/RL Report

Turkey Claims Clinton Pledge On Genocide Resolution
U.S. -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) meets with Turkish
29.03.2010

(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has assured Turkey
the White House opposes a congressional resolution labeling the World
War One massacres of Armenians in Turkey as genocide, the Turkish
Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

The ministry issued the statement after a telephone call between
Clinton and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Sunday.

The United States is keen to smooth over relations with Turkey, NATO's
only Muslim member, and a key ally in trouble spots from Afghanistan
to the Middle East. Turkey recalled its ambassador in Washington after
a U.S. House of Representatives committee approved a non-binding
resolution on March 4 calling on President Barack Obama to refer to
the killings of as many as 1.5 million Armenians almost a century ago
as genocide. The full House of Representatives is due to consider the
resolution, although it was unclear whether it would go to a vote or
had enough support to pass.

"Secretary Clinton emphasized that the U.S. administration

opposes both the decision accepted by the committee and the

decision reaching the general assembly," the statement said.

Turkey wants to be sure that Obama will not use the term genocide in
an address scheduled for April 24, and has halted high profile visits
by officials. Davutoglu told Clinton the congressional committee's
resolution had negatively affected efforts to improved stability in
the South Caucasus.

While Turkey and Armenia are trying to normalize relations and open
their shared border, progress is complicated by hostility between
Armenia and Turkey's fellow Muslim ally, Azerbaijan.

Clinton said U.S. officials hoped Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan would
attend a summit in Washington next month on nuclear disarmament, the
foreign ministry statement said. Davutoglu said Erdogan would decide
in the next few days whether to attend the meeting on April 13 and
14. More than 40 world leaders are expected at the summit.

Turkey has offered to use its close ties with Iran in Tehran's dispute
with the West over its nuclear program, but has indicated it may not
support a fourth round of U.N. sanctions being prepared by the United
States and other Western powers.

More than 20 countries recognize the killings of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks nearly a century ago as genocide. Turkey argues that both Turks
and Armenians were killed during the chaos of war and the break-up of
the Ottoman Empire.

DesperateTurkish Tactics to Woo Diaspora on the Eve of April 24
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

The Turkish government has been receiving a succession of bad news in
recent weeks. Its persistent policy of denial of the Armenian Genocide
suffered serious setbacks when the ForeignAffairs Committee of the
U.S. House of Representatives, the Swedish Parliament,and Catalonia's
regional Parliament in Spain adopted resolutions acknowledging the
Armenian Genocide.

Turkish denialists are terrified by these official acknowledgments on
the eve of the 95th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. They are even
more alarmed by the factthat the Parliaments of Bulgaria,
Israel,Serbia, Spain, and Great Britain are about to consider similar
resolutions in April.

The Turkish leadership was under the mistaken impression that the
Protocols signed with Armenia six months ago would end any further
action on the Armenian Genocide by the international community. In
fact, Turkey had viewed these Protocols as a last ditch effort to stem
the tide of such acknowledgments in the future. Its devious strategy
almost worked, as the genocide resolutions in both Spainand the
U.S. Congress were adopted by a mere one vote majority. The
opponentsof these resolutions specifically cited the
'reconciliation' between Armenia and Turkey as their reason for
voting against them.

Alarmed by these developments, and distracted by serious internal
problems, the Turkish government has initiated, perhaps a little too
late, a series of actions,hoping to prevent further defeats on the
Armenian Genocide issue.

These actions range from using harsh, bullying tactics against
countries that dare to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, and a soft
approach to mislead the international community into thinking that the
Turkish government is being more accommodating towardsArmenians.

Among the Turkish bullyingtactics against countries acknowledging the
genocide are:
-- Recalling its ambassador;
-- Canceling military contracts; and
-- Boycotting the purchase of consumer goods.

Last week, Turkish officials added a new twist, threatening to sue the
more than 20 countries that have already acknowledged the Armenian
Genocide. This is one of the many bluffsTurkish leaders use from time
to time to discourage additional countries fromacknowledging the
Genocide. I truly hope that Turkey would carry out this threat, as it
would create worldwide publicity for the mass crimes committed against
Armenians. Any fair-minded non-Turkish court would immediately
dismisssuch a frivolous lawsuit!

Turkey's more clever tactics, using soft gloves at the advice of
western public relations agents, include:
-- Renovating a couple of historic Armenian churches, while thousands
of others are converted to mosques, stables,residences or simply
ruined.
-- The `gracious' gesture of allowing religious services to be
performed once a year for a limited number of people and limited
duration to be determined by Turkish authorities, at the 10th century
Holy Cross Armenian Church at Akhtamar Island, on Lake Van.This world
famous house of worship is officially designated as a touristic site,
not a church!
-- Reviewing the possibility of lifting the ban on children of refugees
from Armenia to attend private Armenian schools in Istanbul.
-- A `show' meeting held last week between Prime Minister Erdogan and
the head of Istanbul's Sourp Prgich Armenian hospital, who was wrongly
named as the leader of Turkey's Armenian community. This meeting was
more akin to a slave being summoned by his master. Afterwards, Bedros
Shirinoglu dutifully told the Turkish media that`1915' was nothing
more than a feud between two loving friends, instigated by third
parties! He said that his grandfather was among the victims, but so
weremany Turks! Shirinoglu blamed himself and asked for Erdogan's
forgiveness for the latter's threat to deport 100,000 Armenian
refugees, saying that the inflated figure was his own fault, not the
Prime Minister's.
-- Finally, Foreign Minister Davutoglu came up last week with a new
ploy to divide the Armenian Diaspora,after having limited success in
his attempt to split the Diaspora from Armenia with the
Protocols. Davutoglu announced that the Turkish authorities will
initiate`dialog' with `reasonable Diaspora Armenians,' meaning
Armenians who do not mind selling out the Armenian Cause for their own
ego and personal gain. The Turkish Foreign Minister stated that
contacts will be established with Armenian`intellectuals,
universities, and civil societies.'

Clearly, Turkish officials are resorting to all possible means,
including the continued exploitation of the defunct Protocols, to
discourage additional countries from acknowledging the Armenian
Genocide.

Armenia and the Diaspora must remain vigilant and united,especially in
the weeks leading up to the 95th anniversary ofthe Armenian Genocide,
in order not to fall victim to Turkish machinations, inducements and
entrapments.