Genocide debate haunts Turkey 100 years after Armenian killings
ANKARA, Turkey — Like Turkey’s government, Abdullah won’t bring himself to say the actions of his great grandfather a century ago amounted to genocide.
The 21-year-old Ankara student’s ancestor was among those who played a prominent role in the deportation that led to the killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 as the Ottoman Empire crumbled during World War I. The centenary of the slaughter is being marked today amid unprecedented international recognition that what happened was an act of genocide, to the fury of the authorities in Ankara who dispute the death toll.
“What happened was ethnic engineering,” said Abdullah, whose family name was withheld in case of reprisals. “Still, I don’t think my great grandfather made a mistake, he obeyed orders to relocate Armenians who rebelled against the state.”
As world leaders gather in the Armenian capital of Yerevan today, Turkey’s denials have left the country increasingly isolated. Pope Francis and the European Parliament called on the government in Ankara last week to recognize the genocide, while Germany, Turkey’s largest trading partner in the European Union, is due to adopt the term for the first time today.
“The perpetrators of the genocide failed to achieve what they planned,” Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan told a forum in Yerevan on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande, whose countries both recognize the slaughter as genocide, will be among more than 60 delegations at today’s commemorations. Though he made a 2008 pre-election pledge to recognize the “Armenian genocide,” President Barack Obama is unlikely to use the term in his statement on the centenary, preferring not to alienate Turkey. The country hosts a U.S. air base at Incirlik and is a key defense ally in the Middle East.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will lead a presidential delegation in Yerevan and the U.S. will “urge a full, frank, and just acknowledgment of the facts,” according to a White House statement issued earlier this week.
The genocide dispute is at the core of tensions between Armenia and Turkey, who have no diplomatic ties and face each other across a closed border. Turkey argues that, while atrocities took place, they were the consequence of war after some Armenians joined Russian troops fighting the Ottomans.