Tsitsernakaberd, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2005

Even though the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs has accepted HR106 despite attempts by President Bush to prevent that from happening, there has been surprisingly very little by way of reactions to the news in the blogosphere other than what has already been said in post quoted in the previous entry. However, what is perhaps more interesting now is the reaction in Turkey.

The BBC reports that the Turkish Ambassador to the U.S. has been recalled.

The passing of the resolution by a House committee on Wednesday despite appeals by the Bush administration was denounced by President Abdullah Gul.

Turkey accepts there were mass killings in 1915-17 but denies genocide.

Turkey’s foreign ministry said the ambassador would return to Turkey for a stay of “a week or 10 days”.

“We are not withdrawing our ambassador,” said ministry spokesman Levent Bilman.

“We have asked him to come to Turkey for some consultations.”

The BBC also reports that the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, has denounced the resolution in an unprecedented late night statement from Ankara. Armenia’s president, of course, takes a different view. Other Armenian politicians also hold the same opinion.

Armenia’s political establishment on Thursday welcomed the genocide resolution approved by a U.S. congressional panel the previous day to describe the World War I-era killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide.

Opening the parliament session, Speaker Tigran Torosian expressed gratitude to the American congressmen for showing “high moral qualities” and withstanding “various pressures.”

[…]

Armenian lawmaker David Harutiunian highly evaluated the huge work done by the Armenian organizations and said the resolution was unlikely to bring in any “essential change” in the Armenia-Turkey relations.

“Even if there is some change, it will be of a very temporary nature. I said a few years ago that Turkey would itself recognize the genocide in the next ten or fifteen years and I have the same conviction today,” he told RFE/RL.

Armen Rustamian, from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, thinks the resolution will be instrumental in changing Turkey’s approaches to the matter.

“I think it will make Turkey revise its stereotypes and show a serious approach to the Armenian genocide issue. I am sure gradually Turkey itself will understand that this resolution marks the beginning of Turkey’s modernization and reform,” Rustamian told RFE/RL.

“Similar recognitions increase the Armenian people’s trust towards the international community and towards the idea of justice. In this sense, it is, of course, praiseworthy. I don’t think there will be any tangible consequences,” Stepan Safarian of the opposition Heritage faction commented.

And Mher Shahgeldian, of the opposition Orinats Yerkir party, said: “It is already a wave that will sooner or later gain even greater momentum in the world.”

The Armenian Observer also provides a digest of local media reaction to the resolution, but says that the news came too late for most of the newspapers to include coverage. Even so, RFE/RL’s Press Review carries some summaries in English although interestingly, reactions seem determined by political orientation.

One pro-opposition newspaper takes a more cynical position than a pro-governmental one, for example.

“Hayots Ashkhar” writes: “If Turkey has a different opinion about the contents of the genocide resolution and generally about the tragedy that happened [at the beginning of last century], no one has so far prevented it from presenting this opinion to the discussion of U.S. lawmakers and advancing it through a democratic procedure.”

“Hayk” puts the debate into a different perspective: “It turns out that those who impatiently waited for the congressmen to consider this resolution wanted once again to make sure that Turkey is a strategic partner of the United States. On the other hand, a logical question arises – what will Armenia and its citizens gain if the Americans condemn the genocide? Naturally nothing. On the contrary, it will incite anti-Armenian sentiments in Turkey with all the ensuing consequences. Of course, it is extremely important for normalizing Armenia-Turkey relations that the Turks themselves condemn the genocide, but the discussion of this matter by Americans or Europeans only cause reaction from Turkey.”

And it has to be said that such concerns are very real. Although the story sounds ridiculous, PanArmenian.Net reports that an anti-American backlash is already starting in Turkey — and in some very ridiculous ways. The story would be funny were it not for concerns that ultra-nationalists might target the Turkish-Armenian community next.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Cinemas screening American films are closed in Istanbul. To protest adoption of the Armenian Genocide Resolution by the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee dozens of Macdonald’s employees did not appear at work.

[…]

Turkish media reports that dozens of American toys, including Barbie and Spiderman dolls, were burnt in a shop in southeast of the country, the RFE/RL reports.

Turkish scholar of Kurdish descent, Yektan Turkyilmaz, has already offered his own opinion on the resolution before it was even passed and shares the same fears. Instead, he argues, it is more expedient to concentrate on the murder in Turkey earlier this year of ethnic Armenian newspaper editor, Hrant Dink.

“The effect of the ‘genocide’ bill, even before being passed, has been to invigorate ultra-nationalists in Turkey who see the bill as evidence of America and Armenia conspiring to paint Turks as victimizers,” Turkyilmaz said. “It does not strengthen groups in Turkey and Armenia open to better relations through dialogue.

“A better way to pursue those goals is proposed in another bill regarding Turkey, also currently in Congress,” Turkyilmaz said. “That bill condemns the assassination this year of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and calls for the continuation of the investigation of his murder.”

It remains to be seen how all of this might affect the likelihood of the resolution making it to the floor of the U.S. Congress. Ultimately, I think that few people consider that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with others, chose to back the resolution in order to right a historical wrong. More likely it had everything to do with keeping ethnic Armenian constituents happy, and her opponents will accuse her of endangering U.S. interests abroad as a result.

The Independent raises this point.

“This is a choice between condemning genocide and endangering our soldiers in Iraq,” was how Tom Lantos, Democratic chairman of the House committee and himself a Jewish Holocaust survivor, summed up the dilemma. For its part, the White House is pleading with Mr Erdogan not to send troops into mainly Kurdish northern Iraq, and risk destabilising the country’s most peaceful region.

[…]

No one is in a trickier position than Ms Pelosi. Her San Francisco district has a large Armenian population, and she has long called for passage of a resolution specifically condemning genocide. Now she faces a choice between defying the White House, and backing down.

The Hill’s Pundits Blog also has more.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has picked the worst time to play politics when it comes to Iraq, Turkey and Armenia.

I worked for Denny Hastert when he went out to campaign for Jim Rogan and promised him a vote on an Armenian Genocide Resolution. The reaction from the Turkish government was swift. They threatened to cancel billions of dollars of military contracts with American companies like Boeing. They promised to kick us out of Incirlik Air Force Base. They told the president that they wouldn’t help us out on just about anything we needed help on in the Middle East.

It was bad. President Clinton pleaded with Speaker Hastert: Don’t threaten our own national security for domestic politics. After thinking long and hard, the Speaker took the right route. He told Rogan he couldn’t put the resolution on the floor. And Rogan ended up losing his election. Hastert sacrificed a congressional seat in order to protect America’s national security.

Now, almost a decade later, a new Speaker and a new situation.

We are now in a real war with terrorists. We have more than 100,000 troops in Iraq. We have the Turks threatening to invade Kurdistan, just as Joe Biden talks about creating Kurdistan out of the ashes of Iraq. We have a more Islamic-leaning Turkish government. We are a fighting a global war on terror, where we need the help of the Turks more than ever.

And Nancy Pelosi has decided to bring the same resolution to the floor, threatening our national security by playing politics.

[…]

This is a bad time to play politics, Madame Speaker, especially on this issue, follow the lead of your predecessor. Choose American national security over domestic politics.

Nevertheless, after all of this news, commentary and opinion I’m reminded of one thing. It is usually Turkey that makes things bad for itself with knee-jerk reactions aimed at surpressing what most of the world already accepts as fact. Rather than let everything die down and not make headline news, it is precisely actions such as threatening the U.S., recalling the Turkish Ambassador and burning American icons that brings the issue of Genocide recognition to the fore.

Instead, you have to wonder whether it’s just not better to let recognition take its course, open up discussion in Turkey itself, and accept the reality while minimizing the damage before finally moving on.

Then, Turkey can progress democratically and move closer to European Union accession while relations between Yerevan and Ankara can finally be established. Few people in Armenia or elsewhere, save perhaps for the Diaspora, expect any territorial reparations, and not least because the Kurdish and Turkish population already living there would outnumber ethnic Armenians here and probably abroad.

Of course, let’s not get too carried away. All of this assumes one thing. That is, that the resolution makes it to the floor of the U.S. Congress and is not discarded after more interventions from the White House as has been the case in the past. For sure, the battle between the Armenian and Turkish lobbies is not yet over and this story will continue for some time to come.

Meanwhile, The Armenian Observer has just posted some excerpts from blogs in Armenian, Russian and English. For Turkish and other reactions see here.

Tsitsernakaberd, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2005