The least the EU could do is to insist that Turkey treat Armenia as it would a normal neighbour.
The issue of international recognition of the Armenian genocide in its current form is about a decade old. Yet the EU, and particularly the European Commission, has gone out of its way to evade the issue, probably hoping it would go away. It has not and will not. As you noted in your special report on Turkey (“An agreement, but little progress”, 15-21 April), Turkey reacted strongly to one resolution on the genocide in the Swedish parliament and to another by a committee in the US Congress. And every year, on 24 April, the genocide will be commemorated.
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Europe now has a responsibility to address the issue.
The least the EU could do is to insist that Turkey treat Armenia as it would a normal neighbour. The Union must begin to act on its mandate: under the Copenhagen criteria, candidate countries should establish normal relations with all neighbours. However, successive accession partnerships with Turkey have contained no reference to Turkey’s 17-year blockade of Armenia. And although Europe spends about €600 million a year promoting development in Turkey, and funds a plethora of cross-border projects, not one euro has gone on projects to promote relations between Turkey and Armenia. This is policy, not oversight, and it must be changed.
But that is not all. The genocide happened long ago and the dead cannot be brought back to life. But the denial of the genocide is of very contemporary relevance.
By the end of the 19th century, the Armenians were one of the most successful groups in the Ottoman Empire and did much for its prosperity, culture and intellectual life. Some Turks are rediscovering this today. In 1915, a rich and vibrant civilisation was destroyed in Turkey and its remnants scattered across five continents. Few Armenians remain in Turkey itself.
In 1915, in response to US ambassador Henry Morgenthau’s protests at the extermination of the Armenians, Talaat Pasha, Turkey’s interior minister, responded that “hatred between the two races [sic] is now so intense that we must finish them off, or fear their revenge”. Subsequently, denial of the crime and denial of Turkey’s Armenian past became policy. Over the past 95 years, policy has morphed into an attitude, and official lies into an official truth.
Anti-Armenian policies have been hard-wired into policymaking, which is why it is so hard for the rather less prejudiced government formed by the Justice and Development (AK) party to change course today. This is the background that helps explain the threat, made several weeks ago by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdog?an, to expel Armenian immigrants in Turkey and which explains the expropriation of Armenian-owned buildings under the law on religious foundations.
Turkey’s policy should disturb EU citizens and Turks, not least because it is so disproportionate. In 2010, confronted with foreign parliaments’ resolutions on the genocide, Turkey refuses dialogue, threatens to expel Armenian immigrants, takes the Republic of Armenia hostage and threatens to suspend economic relations with Western allies.
So what can Europe do? First, it should not itself practise genocide denial. Genocide recognition by Turkey may or may not be one of the conditions for accession. But the Commission and the Council of Ministers should no longer bind themselves to the vocabulary of denial. Enough with “the events of 1915” and “the 1915 tragedy” and “leaving history to the historians”. Say what happened, or never again invoke the memory and prevention of war and genocide as a justification for European unification.
There are anodyne forms of complicity in denial. In 2007, Olli Rehn , the then European commissioner for enlargement, agreed to host an exhibition, ‘My Dear Brother’, featuring Armenian everyday life in Turkey 100 years ago. It had nothing to do with the genocide, but simply invoking the memory of Armenians in Turkey was apparently itself a step too far: José Manuel Barroso, the Commission president, had it cancelled for fear of Turkey’s reaction. It will take a bit more spine than that to change Turkey.
Now that the EU has taken on the project of integrating Turkey, it will be bound to help to halt and reverse the destruction of Armenian civilisation on Turkish territory. Much Armenian heritage there has now vanished: churches have been destroyed, books burnt, sites renamed and memories erased. However, hundreds of precious and ancient buildings remain to be rescued and restored to their rightful owners, especially the Armenian Church. In ten years’ time, many may have collapsed.
Turkey’s ability to show contrition towards Armenians, make a clear break with past policies and help mend some of the damage should be a litmus test of its maturity to join EU. This is all a matter of what Europe stands for.
From:
Nicolas Tavitian
Armenian General Benevolent Union Europe
Brussels