The worst times the Turkish diplomacy has to go through

PanARMENIAN.Net - Falah Mustafa Bakir, the Head of the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Department of Foreign Relations states: "The Armenians are winning, we are paying off. The Kurdish province in Iraq is the safest and the most stable one, but it can pay off a very big price for the actions of the Kurdish Workers Party in Turkey, exactly as for the voting of Resolution 106 about the Armenian Genocide. None of these questions has any relation to the Kurdish people of Iraq or the government of the province. We are not looking for any conflicts with Turkey; just on the contrary, we believe that the friendly relations with Turkey are one of the key priorities we can have." True though, there are "other" Kurds who welcome the Resolution about the Armenian Genocide of 1915. It should be mentioned that in 1947 when the Turkish troops occupied the northern part of Cyprus, the World Community's reaction was not so violent.

Perhaps the present government of Turkey has a strong reason to think of the Young Turks with a kind of jealousy, for it was all the same for them how the World Community would response to the Armenian Genocide. The truth is though, that in those times too the newspapers wrote about the terrible slaughters. In its article "The Armenian Slaughter. Annihilation of a Race. Horrifying History" published on October 8, 1915 The Times wrote about the Armenian Genocide. The article told in details about the systematic exterminations of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the atrocity of the Turkish soldiers butchering the Armenians, about the Kurds attacking the Armenian villages, about how crowds of wounded, exhausted and faint with hunger Armenians were forced to cross the desert Deir ez Zor, where the dead bodies of women, children and old people covered all around. The Times also writes about the vain attempts of European diplomats, having witnessed those horrifying events to prevent the violence of the Ottoman Turks and quotes Talal Ataturk's words who announced in the beginning of the 20th century, "Armenians are the race, whose extermination will not be any big loss for anyone at all." The other day the newspaper published the reprinted edition of this article. And The New York Sun writes about the whole issue with an open text: "It was Genocide, and it is simply indecent to deny it. In our days the denial of the Armenian Genocide is considered to be a sign of bad form."

Elements of absurdity are sure to be observed in this story. The statement made by Turkish Prime Minister's advisor on foreign policy issues Egemen Bagis saying that, "Turkey must apply sanctions against Armenia, since it supports the Resolution 106 of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs about the Armenian Genocide" cannot be qualified differently. Or maybe the advisor forgot that the borders have been closed since 1993, or he intends to close the way to Armenia from Turkey through Georgia. Even if Georgia agrees to do that, it will have to deal with Europe, which is already inclined to the earliest opening of the Armenian-Turkish borders. Otherwise what will this symbolic gesture give? Another more dangerous thing will be the arrest of the Armenian citizens who are in Turkey illegally. According to Turkey there are 70.000 of them, but more reliable sources show that there are 10.000-15.000 people. This will already be enough to complicate the situation of RA's foreign policy. The aim of these statements is quite clear, it aims at upsetting Armenia's routine with the hope that it will finally agree with the Turkish suggestion of establishing a commission of historians and follow whatever comes next.

According to the former Ambassador Gunduz Aktana, one of the most fervent opponents of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey should apply the hardest sanctions against the USA, "Whatever happened, happened. Turkey must undertake return measures," announced Aktana in his interview with Turkish Daily News. According to him, otherwise the country could pay a higher price and in the final result could lose the principles of its foreign policy. Nuzet Kandemir turned to the government with the request to consider all the risks the possible responses from the USA. "These measures shouldn't be publicly discussed, they should be discussed secretly and seriously with the condition of realizing them only when the right time comes," he said.

The problem is that the relations between Turkey and the United States are not correctly qualified. The strategic partners act like one state and two nations, but in American-Turkish relations things are quite differently arranged. The approval of the Resolution 106, the reestablishment of the relations with the radical Islamic grouping HAMAS and the agreement on cooperation with Turkey and Iran in the field of energy showed that these two countries have not been strategic partners but only allies. If we look at the problem in this prospective, we will not find ourselves in confusion," thinks Turkish diplomat Inal Batu.