Taner Akcam: US possesses a “gun that can only shoot once”

February 15, 2010 - 11:39 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net -
Having the US Congress or the President declare what happened in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 a genocide is like a “golden bullet”, a Turkish scholar said.

“The US possesses a ‘gun that can only shoot once’. Here’s the question: is it better to shoot that bullet or to keep the gun loaded with it and use it as a threat continuously? I believe the US has chosen the second option for years. The US understands that this ‘gun’ is good for only one shot and is holding back because once the ‘bullet’ has been released it loses its power and meaning. For this reason, it seems that rather than shooting off that “gun loaded with one bullet”, it serves the US’s purposes to use it as a threat every year,” professor Taner Akcam, the author of “A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility” book, told PanARMENIAN.Net

“This game has become boring. I think we will see it this year again. The US will use 1915 as a threat and will try to get Turkey to compromise. This year’s compromise could be to put the Armenian Turkish Protocol into action,” he said.

“A Turkey that is threatened with the resolution cannot exercise any pressure on Armenia for the Karabakh issue. Until the end of April the Armenian government is in a very comfortable position. Most likely they won’t make any move in Karabakh, will maintain their position and simply wait for Turkey to fend off the ‘genocide threats’ by coming to the table and accepting the Protocols. My basic fear is that Turkey still doesn’t consider normalization of its relation with Armenia to be a priority and makes it contingent to Azerbaijan’s demands and this is not a healthy policy,” prof. Akcam said.

The Armenian Genocide resolution

The resolution affirming the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide (H.Res.252) was formally introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Reps. Adam Schiff (D.-CA), George Radanovich (R.-CA), Frank Pallone, Jr. (D.-NJ), and Mark Kirk (R.-Ill). On March 4, 2010 it was adopted with a 22-21 vote by the House Committee on Foreign Relations. A similar resolution was introduced in the Senate.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.