Turkey plays on its attitude to the Armenian Genocide
The visits of state leaders to Armenia to events dedicated to the centenary of the Armenian Genocide will be a test of the strength of these countries' relations with Turkey. However, Ankara reacts calmly to Russia, which recognizes the fact of the genocide, which cannot be said about the United States and other European countries. There are several explanations for this dual position of Turkey.Armenia is preparing for events dedicated to the centenary of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. On Monday, the head of the presidential administration in Armenia Vigen Sargsyan said that the heads of Russia, France, Cyprus and Serbia will arrive in Yerevan. In general, their participation was confirmed by more than 60 foreign delegations.
Vladimir Putin is going to Yerevan
Earlier, the Kremlin press service announced that President Putin intends to visit Yerevan on April 24. It is on this day that the main events are scheduled. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, did not rule out the possibility of a meeting between the presidents of Russia and France in the capital of Armenia.
According to RIA "News”He also expressed confidence that the visit would not affect the construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline and the relations between Moscow and Ankara. “We have very close partnerships with the Republic of Turkey, which have a very strong base of mutually beneficial economic cooperation. Our positions on many world problems coincide, ”said Peskov, adding that Armenia and Russia are tied by“ whole myriads of different threads ”.
Recall that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Ottoman Empire persecuted and persecuted Armenians, which reached their peak in the 1915 year. Before the start of World War I, the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was about 2,5 million people. In the 1915, as a result of the deportation and systematic killings, according to various estimates, from 600 thousand to 1,5 million Armenians died. Armenia calls those events the genocide of its people. Turkey has traditionally denied the allegations, claiming that both Armenians and Turks were victims of the 1915 tragedy of the year.
Ankara’s sharp reaction to the process of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide remains one of the main reasons for the difficult relations between Turkey and Armenia.
The fact of the genocide of the Armenian people in Ottoman Turkey is recognized by many states. Uruguay was the first to do this in 1965. The European Parliament and the World Council of Churches also recognized the Armenian Genocide. In 1995, the State Duma adopted a resolution “On the condemnation of the genocide of the Armenian people of 1915-1922. on his historical homeland - in Western Armenia. ”
Pragmatic Turks
Moscow and Ankara have developed a pragmatic development of economic relations, and in connection with the European sanctions against Russia, Turkey is trying not to lose its benefits, said Yulia Kudryashova, senior researcher at the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security at the Institute of International Relations, in a conversation with the VIEW newspaper.
“Turkey treats Russia very pragmatically. In connection with the sanctions, Turkey has seen for itself the opportunity to occupy those niches that the EU countries will lose. In addition, Turkey sees a chance to obtain the latest technologies, in particular in the field of the peaceful atom. And “Turkish Stream” is very beneficial for Turkey itself, because for South Stream it was only a transit state, and now it will actually store this gas in its gas storage facilities and claim to mix it with gas from the TANAP gas pipeline (joint with Azerbaijan project), ”explained Kudryashova. In this regard, it is illogical to believe that the visit of Vladimir Putin to Yerevan to events dedicated to the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide could somehow affect the relations between Moscow and Ankara.
Moreover, Russia's position on Armenia has been known for a long time, Kudryashova notes. The Russian Federation was originally an ally of this country in whose territory the Russian military base is located. Moscow is part of the Minsk Group for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Russia recognized the fact of the Armenian Genocide at the parliamentary level, when relations with Turkey were rather tense. Then the main differences concerned the Chechen campaign and Moscow’s support of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.
“Relations with Turkey began to improve since 1998 – 1999, and they became warmer with Erdogan’s coming to power - after 2003,” she said. However, according to the expert, it cannot be said that now Russia and Turkey have very warm political relations. For example, countries have diametrically opposed positions on the situation in the Middle East. Turkey also constantly supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine and is concerned about the situation of the Crimean Tatars.
So Turkey will most likely prefer to simply close its eyes to relations between Russia and Armenia, including in the issue of recognizing the genocide. Most of all, according to Kudryashova, Ankara is now worried about the position of its other partners. Thus, she fears the recognition of the Armenian genocide by the United States and other Western allies, in particular France. “Turkey believes that such a confession would be a betrayal on their part. In this case, Ankara questions its obligations to fulfill trade and armory contracts. Therefore, the lobbying companies in the US, which oppose the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the Congress, are primarily the enterprises of the military-industrial complex.
The same thing happens with France, explains the expert. “When this topic is raised in parliament, the question of a threat to trade relations immediately arises. For France, this is a rather unpleasant moment, and the process of recognition is suspended. Turkey considers the United States to be the leading country, and, from its point of view, if the Americans recognize the Armenian Genocide, this will turn into the principle of dominoes, ”Kudryashova told VIEW newspaper.
Note that the position of the United States on this issue is twofold. Last week, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf commented that the United States condemned the mass extermination of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. At the same time, she did not utter the word "genocide", as well as other official representatives of Washington in previous years. A year ago, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress approved a resolution recognizing the fact of the Armenian Genocide. She was supported by 12 committee members. The fact of its approval does not mean automatic submission for discussion by the full composition of the House of Representatives. A similar document was adopted by the committee in 2010 year.
In turn, the director of the Middle East - Caucasus research center Stanislav Tarasov is convinced that Russia has very clearly drawn the historical line of relations with Turkey and Armenia, so Moscow’s recognition of the Armenian genocide did not prevent the development of bilateral relations. “Russia and Turkey have a complicated history. There were dozens of wars ... If we clung to every historical event, we would never build normal relations. Armenia is now an independent state. And the problem of genocide relates directly to Turkish-Armenian relations. This is still their problem, ”Tarasov told VZGLYAD newspaper.
The expert stressed that Russia was one of the first to show solidarity with Yerevan, and the “West was late”. “Turkey is a member of NATO, the United States refuses to admit the fact of genocide. And this is a problem of the Turkish-American relations. But this is by no means a problem for Russia’s relations with the West. And the Armenian side cannot reproach Russia for anything, which has withstood all polite. Russia truly believes that the tragic events of 1915 were genocide. We know this in detail, because it was our common history, ”he noted.
Germany will say about the genocide
In the near future, Germany can recognize the Armenian genocide. According to the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, this decision was supported by the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. What happened in 1915 can be “combined into the concept of genocide,” he said. Until now, the foreign ministry avoided such a formulation due to the danger of deterioration of relations with Ankara.
Steinmeier made this statement in the light of the fact that representatives of parties in the German governing coalition (the CDU / CSU bloc and the Social Democratic Party of Germany) intend to consider further qualifying the crimes against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. This, according to TASS, on Monday, said the deputy chairman of the CDU / CSU faction in the Bundestag, Franz Josef Jung.
According to him, the leaders of the factions will present their proposals to the deputies in the text of the resolution, which the Bundestag will adopt in the coming days. Touching upon possible criticism from Ankara, he noted: “There is no provocation in that the situation is described in such a way as it was.” “We want the blockade of recent years to be overcome and the process of reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey to take place,” Jung explained.
The deputy chairman of the CDU / CSU faction assumes that the concept of “genocide” will be used in his speech by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany Joachim Gauck. "All the information that I have, they say that this will happen," - he said.
Regarding the possibility of Germany recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Stanislav Tarasov recalled that Germany was an ally of Turkey in the First World War. “The Germans were developing a geopolitical strategy at that time ... Germany should bear its part of the responsibility for all this, and not only the political one. The events in Eastern Anatolia, which led to tragic consequences for the Armenian population, were directly implicated by the German generals who worked in the Ottoman Empire. If Germany recognizes the Armenian genocide, then Yerevan will have the opportunity to come up with various financial and legal claims, ”Tarasov believes.
It should be noted that last week the European Parliament declared 24 April the European Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide and called on Ankara to recognize the fact of the genocide. MEPs also called on parliaments and governments of all 28 EU members to adopt legal documents recognizing the historical fact of the genocide.
A little earlier, Pope Francis, at a solemn mass in St. Peter’s Cathedral, where many Armenian believers were present, including Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, called the Armenian Genocide the first crime in the twentieth century a crime against humanity. The recognition of the Armenian Genocide as early as 2000 was announced by then Pope John Paul II.
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