Turkey's Guilty Conscience

Pop quiz: Can you name one part of the world where the United States and the Russian Federation have been making common cause? Correct answer: in Turkey and Armenia, where the two powers have been collaborating of late.

And that's only one of the many remarkable twists to emerge from a diplomatic quest that, for sheer complexity and emotional explosiveness, is likely rivaled only by the search for peace in the Middle East. It has been a wild ride, and it's not over yet. Ankara and Yerevan are signing two historic agreements that could pave the way toward a major diplomatic rapprochement and an opening of the two countries' common 325-kilometer border, which has been closed for the past 16 years.

"I think we're seeing a series of high-water marks in a long process," says the International Crisis Group's Hugh Pope. "Considering where we've come from 10 years ago to where we are today, it's nothing short of amazing."

But there's still a long way to go. Like the Israelis and Palestinians, the Turks and Armenians share a lot of history, and that's not always a good thing. As in the Middle East, the Turks and the Armenians are separated by religion, harshly felt territorial disputes, and the poisonous legacy of killing on a scale so vast that it boggles the mind. Small wonder that the two peoples have spent most of the past 100 years locked in mutual antipathy.

The issue that looms over all else is 1915's "Great Calamity," when more than 1 million overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian Armenians met their deaths at the hands of mostly Muslim Ottoman Turks during the turmoil of World War I. Armenians, and most non-Turkish historians, say it was genocide. The Turks, for their part, have long denied that it ever happened -- perhaps because admitting the massacres would cast a stain on the birth of the present-day Republic of Turkey, which was established in the aftermath of the war. A controversial Turkish law that prohibits insults to "Turkishness" has sometimes been used as a basis for prosecuting those who would dare refer to the events of 1915 as genocide.

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ARAMB

9:02 AM ET

October 12, 2009

A Call for Justice

Ratifying these disastrous protocols would mean Armenia legally and irreversibly approving Turkey’s notorious preconditions:

1. Turkey will forever keep 90% of indigenous Armenian lands (Western Armenia and Cilicia) and be allowed to commit many more rounds of blockade, hostility, oppression, rape, murder, massacre and genocide with impunity;

2. The veracity of the Armenian Genocide -- an incontestable fact and ongoing, unparalleled crime against humanity -- is “in question,” and "in the spirit of good neighborly relations," centuries of more research “is required” to determine “what really happened in 1915?”;

3. All of Artsakh (Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh) -- indigenous Armenian land -- will be given to and forever be part of Azerbaijan.

Furthermore, it is important to point out that Western nations and Israel just want to fast track the opening and recognition of the current borders for energy, security and trade exploitation. They don't give a damn about Armenian democracy, justice, rights and security. They should be ashamed of themselves!

And, for the second time this century, Switzerland is mediating/hosting negotiations that are most detrimental to the Armenian Cause. In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne handed all of Western Armenia and Cilicia to Turkey. A 2009 accord based on these anti-Armenian protocols will verify and stamp the disastrous Lausanne legacy once and for all!

I call on all people of moral conscience, especially human rights and justice advocates worldwide, to join members and friends of the Armenian Nation in making sure that these unacceptable protocols are NEVER ratified and that full restorative justice is served to the Armenian people!

SCUBADIVER

12:17 PM ET

November 1, 2009

Call for Justice

First of all, I would like to establish a point that Turkish and Armenian people lived in peace for years in Ottoman territory. They were free to use in their language, to practise their religion and to live their own culture. What on earth happened that they became enemies? If you look into the history, you will find that it was because of Russian provocations in those years. As the Russian empire wanted to obtain some territories in the east of Turkey, it just used the Armenian people as well as British Empire and France used the Turkish soldiers for the same reasons. They all wanted to get more as imperialist nations. In the regions which you claimed as Armenian land, Turkish people also lived. Please, read more about history! Do not ignore some facts!

NERGIS

5:18 PM ET

Forgive us

Let me say to Armenians appologies, out nation did something as Nation German to Jewish. If turkish people have information about that I'm sure that all people must say "appologies us" for doing our grandfathers...

12:45 PM ET

Turkey's Guilty Conscience

Mr. Christian Carly,

You claim that during the turmoil of World War I. Armenian people were killed by Turkish soldiers. What about Turkish children, women killed by Armenian gangs in those years? What is the number of Turkish people killed by Armenian gangs? The Russian empire provocated Armenian gangs in those years. However, these people- Turkish and Armenian- were living in peace in the same region. Please, let's look into the historical facts! You are going to find more facts in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Number 342, 24.07.1921.

Turkey's Guilty Conscience

One of the world's thorniest historical conflicts is on the verge of being solved. But long-term peace between Turkey and Armenia might be as hard to achieve as a lasting Middle East truce.

BY CHRISTIAN CARYL | OCTOBER 9, 2009

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