Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Armenia and Turkey look to their bitter past
"Who now remembers the Armenians?"
- Adolf Hitler
The monster said this when asked about a potential international uproar over the killing of the Jews. Ottoman Empire had not felt any reprecussions of its genocide against the Armenians, and so he believed that he could get away with his planned genocide.
This story is a product of European pressure. There is no way that Turkey would directly acknowledge the genocide after 90 years of harsh denials. Instead the Turkish president is pushing as far as he is able. He has proposed a joint, independent historical investigation, that will either exonerate Turkey, or more likely provide him with the context that will allow him to apologize for the atrocity and thereby meet one of Europe's unofficial preconditions for entry into the union.
Jacob
Armenian President Robert Kocharian responded with "let us meet without any pre-conditions" to the suggestion of "establishing a joint commission of historians and other experts" made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the so-called Armenian allegations.
Kocharian made it clear in his remarks "We cannot debate without taking the past, today, and tomorrow into account" and that he wants to build a relationship with Turkey. The letter, which revealed the comments suggesting that it would open to a new period in the relations of the countries, reached Ankara from Tbilisi. Kocharian did not use the word "genocide" in the letter and brought alternative suggestion that the issues should be debated on an inter-governmental platform contrary to Turkey's suggestion.
As Ankara positively accepts the written response from Armenian to Erdogan's letter dated April 13, it is avoiding making any early declarations regarding the letter. Foreign Minister Gul confirming the letter said: "We will investigate, and respond." The Armenian administration had previously not even been willing to agree on discussions about the so-called genocide allegations with Turkey. Yerevan reflected that it now wants to conduct diplomatic relations with Ankara. Kocharian said, "We cannot debate the issue without taking the past, today and tomorrow into account." The expression "negotiation without pre-condition" has not been met positively in the initial assessments. Ankara wants concrete steps to be taken in order to conduct official contacts. Therefore, some expressions in the Armenian Constitution and the Declaration of Independence need to be extracted. Erdogan's letter to Kocharian, which reminded that their people have been living together for a long time, read: "We invite historians from both our countries' to investigate the events in 1915 by researching into all the archives of the related third-party countries and reveal them to the public." (Link)
