Turkey slams Joe Biden's 'betrayal' in recognising Armenian genocide
26 April, 2021
Turkey called US President Joe Biden’s utilization of the word “genocide” for the killings of Armenians through the First World War the “greatest betrayal to peace and justice” on Saturday.
Turkey has lobbied for decades against US presidential recognition of genocide when marking the massacres that killed hundreds of thousands of Armenian Ottomans because they were deported from Anatolia to the Syrian desert in 1915 and 1916.
Although symbolic, Mr Biden’s remarks threaten to worsen already tense relations with Ankara.
“Words cannot change or rewrite history,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted moments after the release of Mr Biden’s statement.
“We have nothing to understand from anybody on our very own past. Political opportunism is the foremost betrayal to peace and justice. We totally reject this statement based solely on populism.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, condemned the Biden statement as “null and void”.
“It is extremely clear that this statement to get the unfounded slander of the Armenian diaspora is due to the internal political calculations of america,” he said.
We usually do not accept and strongly condemn US President Biden’s statement on the events in the Ottoman Empire in 1915
AKP
“This initiative … won't help Armenians escape the difficult situation they are in and can not serve the interests of the United States. It really is truly unfortunate for Turkey-US relations that the Biden administration chose to present history incorrectly for domestic political purposes.”
A foreign ministry statement said Mr Biden’s words would “open a deep wound that undermines our mutual trust and friendship.” His comments served only to “satisfy certain political circles” and those trying “to foment enmity from history”, it added.
Omer Celik, spokesman for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said: “We usually do not accept and strongly condemn US President Biden’s statement on the events in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, which lacks historical and legal basis and is based on unfounded allegations.”
In a statement on the anniversary of arrests in Istanbul that foreshadowed the massacres, Mr Biden said: “The American persons honour those Armenians who perished in the genocide that commenced 106 years back today.”
His comments came a year after he pledged to discover the genocide, arguing that “silence is complicity”. The president has promised to create human rights a central theme of his foreign policy.
Opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) spokesman Faik Oztrak said the US statement would “go down in history as an excellent mistake”. It could cause “irreparable wounds” to Turkey-US relations, and was a missed chance to boost ties between Turkey and Armenia, he said.
“The Armenian genocide occurred in these lands and justice can only just be achieved in these lands,” said Garo Paylan, an ethnic Armenian MP for the left-wing People’s Democratic Party (HDP).
“Turkish society can heal the wounds of the Armenian people. I respectfully commemorate the victims of the Armenian genocide who've been looking forward to justice for 106 years.”
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said both HDP and Turkey’s Human Rights Association, were “united within their opposition to the country and history”.
Mr Biden spoke to Mr Erdogan on Friday evening - their first conversation since the US president took office in January - and reportedly warned him that he planned to refer to the atrocities as genocide.
Turkey seeks to divert focus on its own victims
Prior to Mr Biden’s statement, the Turkish foreign ministry posted the names of 31 Turkish diplomats killed by Armenian militants in the 1970s and 1980s.
On Saturday, Turkey organised numerous events focusing on the issue, including an exhibition on the victims of Armenian militants in LA, the heart of the Armenian community in america.
Mustafa Sentop, speaker of the Turkish parliament, said that Turkey may possibly also touch upon dark episodes in American history. “Among the countries with the dirtiest history in this regard may be the USA,” he said throughout a visit to a memorial to the slain diplomats in Ankara.
THE UNITED STATES Senate passed a non-binding resolution in 2019 recognising the genocide, deeply angering Turkey at that time. Early this week, more than 100 members of Congress sent a letter to Mr Biden urging him to “right decades of wrongs” and call the killings a genocide.
Turkey accepts that some 300,000 Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed as Russia threatened the empire’s eastern borders during First World War but argues that Muslim civilians were also massacred by Armenian irregulars.
Addititionally there is dispute as to if the killings were deliberately orchestrated by the Ottoman state and over the quantity of Armenians who died.
Historians say between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians died through the deportations and in Syrian camps. Some 2 million lived in Anatolia before the war. By 1922, significantly less than 400,000 Armenians remained.
On April 24, 1915 around 300 Armenian politicians and intellectuals were rounded up in Istanbul and deported to central Anatolia. The following month, mass deportations from Anatolia started and by the summertime of 2016 the spot was emptied of almost all of its Armenian population.
The forced displacement was marked on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day on Saturday.
Mr Biden's statement will increase tensions between your Nato allies over a variety of issues including Ankara’s purchase of Russian missiles; America’s support for Kurdish fighters in Syria who Turkey deems terrorists; US criticism of Turkey’s human rights record; and the existence in america of the alleged mastermind of a 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.
More than 20 governments and parliaments have so far recognised the killings as the first genocide of the 20th century, including France, Canada, Germany and Russia.
The United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which includes been ratified by Turkey, defines genocide as acts designed to “destroy, entirely or partly, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. These actions include killing, leading to serious harm or inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com