Ankara plays rather a safe game in the issue of the Armenian Genocide

PanARMENIAN.Net - But since its publication in a book in January, the number had gone virtually unmentioned. Newspapers hardly wrote about it. Television shows did not discuss it. "The silence can mean only one thing," said Bardakci, "My numbers are too high for ordinary people. Maybe people aren't ready to talk about it yet." For generations, most Turks knew nothing of the details of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to 1918. "Turkey locked the ugliest parts of its past out of sight, Soviet-style, keeping any mention of the events out of schoolbooks and official narratives in an aggressive campaign of forgetting," the author of article says.

Not once Turkey has appeared hostage in the clutches of her own wiles with regard to whether "to use the word 'genocide' when addressing the events of 1915". The whole world was called up for assistance, including the Jewish lobby and the Israeli Government. In effect, Ankara played and still plays rather a safe game in the issue of the Armenian Genocide: Israel will never bear the fact that there has ever been another genocide in the world besides Holocaust, «thanks to» which the Israeli state was established. Swelling the Catastrophe of the European Jews into an event of universal scale, for 60 years Israel has been successfully waging a war against the Arabic tightening encirclement, and, first of all, against Palestine. This position of Israel matched Turkey most of all, as Ankara realized that sooner or later she would have to recognize the "events of 1915" as genocide. However, the system collapsed during the operation «Cast Lead». As we wrote, Prime-Minister Erdogan accused Israel of "committing genocide against the Palestinians" and got a respective answer: "Turks ought not to speak of genocide…" It should be noted, that for the Jews Holocaust is the sole national idea for the sake of which the whole nation works. Unfortunately, this cannot be applied to Armenians. Only two or three Diaspora organizations are seriously engaged in the works of Genocide recognition on an international scale. And the fact that they do it is worthy of respect. The Government contents itself with declarative statements and tries to promote relations with Turkey with the sacred phrase "We are ready to normalize relations without any precondition". However, in reality, it means that Armenia shuts her eyes to the blockade, gives consent to the support provided to Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and overlooks the Armenian Genocide.

Turkey has never acknowledged a specific number of Armenian deportees or deaths. And in this respect the pessimism of the US Armenian community is more than justified. The latter has been doing its best to achieve the US Congress adoption of resolution on recognition of the Armenian Genocide. "A disturbing development is an invitation issued by Armenian officials to Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan to attend the Black Sea Economic Conference (BSEC) on April 16-17, just days before the 94th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide," in his weekly column writes Editor of The California Courier Arthur Sassounian. In his opinion, while Ankara officials are 'bombarding' Washington with such fake messages, the Armenian side should not stay astonishingly silent, giving credence to Turkish misrepresentations which are intended to undermine the prospects of any U.S. declaration on the Armenian Genocide. "It is hard to believe that the Armenian Government should invite to Yerevan the Turkish Foreign Minister, a supporter of Genocide denial, who does not intend to visit the Memorial of the Armenian Genocide, lay a wreath and offer an apology to the Armenian people," emphasized Sassounian.