Armenian-Turkish Relations

[Mukuch]

Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations

Well, Turkey isn't a paradise either...but of course it is always easier to criticize other's looks than to look yourself in the mirror.



They believe nobody supports the historic reality of the Armenian Genocide and that we are alone when it comes to probe it, that we are just speaking without any support or proofs. Poor fools, they must live between the laurels believing what their government and their sell-out historians in Turkey and abroad constantly tell them, about the lies told by Erdogan that "Armenian are scared and that's why they never accepted to open our files"...that excessive confidence will bring them too the ground

Dont be naive, they dont belive in that, they want make others to belive in that. That is what turks all about.

[ashot24]

Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations

Well, Turkey isn't a paradise either...but of course it is always easier to criticize other's looks than to look yourself in the mirror.

It seems very difficult for the Armenian society to ignore a possible suspicion brought about by historians who will pick a subject to pieces which the Armenians are sure the world has already accepted.

They believe nobody supports the historic reality of the Armenian Genocide and that we are alone when it comes to probe it, that we are just speaking without any support or proofs. Poor fools, they must live between the laurels believing what their government and their sell-out historians in Turkey and abroad constantly tell them, about the lies told by Erdogan that "Armenian are scared and that's why they never accepted to open our files"...that excessive confidence will bring them too the ground

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations

Armenians are not as poor as to depend on us
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
MEHMET ALİ BİRAND
Yerevan

There is an urban legend existing for some time.

According to that, Armenia is so poor that it wants the borders to Turkey to open as soon as possible. This way either they can leave for Turkey easily or improve their quality of life with an increase in trade.

This legend may have been true to some extent in the 1990s.

I went to Yerevan a few times in the 90s and I indeed encountered a very poor Armenia. The only place to stay was the Yerevan Hotel where mice ran in the corridor. The streets and buildings were in a bad shape and the quality of life really bad.

With independence in 1992 it slowly started to change and today the improvement in Yerevan has really stunned me.

In place of the ruinous Yerevan Hotel there is now a Marriott and the number of hotels in the city has increased to 10.

Streets have been repaved. Cobblestone pavement or trolley rails cutting into tires have been replaced with streets looking new and clean.

Shopping alleys with their glamorous lights and foreign brands reflect people’s purchasing power. The abundance of restaurants, casinos and nightclubs has stunned me. Previously the number of movie theaters not exceeding two or three in this capitol of 1.5 million now has a very colorful nightlife.

Don’t get me wrong.

Based on what I wrote in the beginning please don’t think that Armenia has become rich and people are living a gorgeous life now. What I am trying to say is that there is no poverty anymore. To describe Armenia’s general situation it would be more correct to say “they are living a moderate lifestyle.”

I wanted to draw your attention to what I hear quite often here. In case the borders are kept closed, Armenians will continue living the way they used to live for the past 17 years and they are not willing to do anything to provide for the opening of the borders.

In return if the borders are opened Armenia will get rid of an embargo and life will become easier. The country will not become rich over night, but life will be easier in many ways. If there won’t be any consent and borders remain closed, then Armenia still won’t die of poverty. Let’s not forget that the opening of borders and lifting of an embargo will support the Armenians morally in negotiations with Azerbaijan. Turkey would seem to support Armenia, even if not as much as Azerbaijan, which is not something to be ignored.

That is why the dispute over borders creates excitement as well as an “It’s not the end of the world” attitude.

Opening borders will also benefit Turkey

To tell the truth, no one knows how much the opening of borders will contribute to Armenia’s economy. Some research shows that the contribution will be moderate to high level, based on investments and trade traffic. But we should not forget that not only Armenia will benefit from this contingency, but also Turkey.

- Armenia, through Turkey, will be able to open up to Middle Eastern and European markets. It will be able to increase the export of goods and import goods cheaper compared to present conditions.

- With the opening of borders tourism from Europe and the Armenian community in Turkey will increase.

- Armenia will be able to sell electricity to Turkey.

- It will also be able to use Turkey’s Black Sea and Mediterranean ports to spread trade.

- Armenia will become a country through which energy lines will run.

- Turkey will also encounter important benefits from the opening of the borders. Regions like Van and Kars will revive in trade and tourism. Goods of Turkish origin will be cheaper in the Armenian market due to short cuts in transportation currently transportation is via Iran and Georgia which makes import quite expensive.

- More importantly Turkey will reach Middle Eastern markets easier. Currently transportation takes too long.

Nobody imagines a life without genocide or the aftermath

The Armenians are so focused on and linked their hopes to Turkey accepting the genocide so much so that they turned it into their lifestyle and when one day Turkey finally accepts it you’d think the world stopped spinning.

When talking to students I asked: “What would you do if Turkey accepted genocide? Would they then ask for territory or compensation?”

They were stunned and didn’t know how to respond.

Genocide has become part of their life so much so that they can’t think of a world in which genocide is an issue any more.

When asking the same question to academics and formal authorities I realized that the aftermath of genocide has never been considered.

It’s interesting but a belief exists in the lines of “Other countries may accept, but it’s hard to make the Turks accept it.” When digging deeper you’ll find two factors. One is that behind these genocide allegations there is no territorial claim but beneficiaries who lost their homes and still hold on to the title deed could sue for compensation. However this issue also seems to far-fetched. Another factor is that even if the protocols were approved in parliament the realization of the historians’ commission in respect to genocide issues would encounter such deep resistance that it would make it almost impossible.

It’s not going to be easy.

It seems very difficult for the Armenian society to ignore a possible suspicion brought about by historians who will pick a subject to pieces which the Armenians are sure the world has already accepted.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=armenians-are-not-as-poor-as-to-depend-on-us-2010-03-31

[Federate]

Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations

Armenian Poll Shows Weak Popular Support For Turkey Ties


Only one in three Armenians supports Armenia’s fence-mending agreements with Turkey and the possible opening of the border between the two estranged nations, according to an opinion poll released on Monday.

The poll conducted by the Armenian Marketing Association (AMA) appears to be the most comprehensive survey yet of Armenian public opinion on the dramatic thaw in Turkish-Armenian relations. The non-governmental group interviewed some 2,500 randomly chosen residents across the country in late January and early February.

The survey, which the AMA says was not financed or commissioned by any other organization, found not only a lack of popular support for the Western-backed rapprochement but also a large number of Armenians undecided about its various aspects and implications.

“Many people are confused, they don’t know whom to believe,” the AMA chairman, Aram Navasardian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. He said the confusion stems from diametrically opposite assessments of the process made by the Armenian government and its political opponents.

According to the AMA, nearly 31 percent of respondents supported, to varying degrees, the increased diplomatic, civil-society and other contacts between Armenia and Turkey. Almost the same percentage of those polled fully or largely opposed such contacts, with the remaining 40 percent either undecided or having no definite opinion.

Accordingly, only 36.3 percent of respondents said the normalization protocols signed by Ankara and Yerevan last October are good for Armenia. Most of the others were either undecided or said the protocols favor only the Turkish side.

The AMA poll suggests that public opinion is almost evenly split on the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, which is envisaged by the protocols. It shows that only one-third of Armenians want to have an open border with Turkey while those who are firmly or mostly against make up just over 30 percent of the population.

Western governments and lending institutions say border opening would have a quick and highly positive impact on the Armenian economy. The Armenian government takes a similar view. The AMA said it is shared by only 41.2 percent of those polled, with another 36.3 percent being “neutral” on the subject or not knowing whether cross-border commerce with Turkey would bring their country economic benefits.

Navasardian stressed that AMA pollsters did not seek to identify reasons for the popular attitudes towards Armenia’s relations with Turkey and the controversial protocols in particular. He said that should be the subject of a separate study.

A similar but less detailed survey was conducted by the government-linked Armenian Sociological Association (ASA) in Yerevan last September, three weeks before the signing of the protocols. According to its findings, 52.4 percent of city residents were unhappy with the Turkish-Armenian deal and only 39 percent approved of it.

Armenian political groups opposed to the protocols primarily reject a clause envisaging the creation of a Turkish-Armenian historical “subcommission” that would presumably look into the 1915 massacres of Armenians by Ottoman forces. They say the Turks would exploit the very existence of such a body to prevent more countries from recognizing the massacres as genocide. The Armenian government denies this.

Some of the protocol critics, notably the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), also strongly object to Yerevan’s pledge to recognize the existing Turkish-Armenian frontier. They also say that its possible opening would cause Armenia more economic losses than benefits.

http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/1997050.html

[hipeter924]

Re: I support the rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia a good step forward

Typical turkish point of view. Letting go the past? Why? Why we should let it go? The only ones who is interested in forgetting the past are turks. They want to forget their cannibal past. We will not forget. WE MUST NOT FORGET! Let the past to spit on face of turks every time mentioned! Than maybe turks will become humans and we will think about "tolerant and more understanding

I look forward to the day they stop the following sentence constructions:

Alleged 'Genocide'

"So-Called Genocide"

"False Armenian allegations"

Armenian 'Massacres'

"Armenian's, Greeks, and Assyrian's Genocided 3 million Turk's"

"Recognition of the Armenian Genocide undermines the Armenian-Turkish negotiations"

and list goes on....

[Haykakan]

Re: Armenian-Turkish Relations

TURKEY'S OPPOSITION PARTY PROPOSES WITHDRAWING OF NORMALIZATION PROTOCOLS WITH ARMENIA

People's Daily Online
March 23 2010
China

Turkey's leading opposition party on Monday brought forward a motion
that requests a parliamentary session on withdrawing the country's
normalization protocols with Armenia, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet
Daily News reported.

"There is no advantage but instead serious disadvantages of keeping
the protocols in the parliament," the newspaper cited the motion,
signed by key members of the main opposition Republican People's Party,
as saying.

The motion came after a U.S. congressional panel and the Swedish
parliament passed resolutions that recognize the killings of Armenians
at Ottoman hands during the World War I as genocide this month.

Holding the normalization protocols at the parliament created
pressure on Turkey, while the current situation would inevitably have
destructive consequences on relations between Turkey and European
Union countries, says the motion.

Turkey and Armenia signed protocols to normalize relations last October
but they needed to be ratified by the two countries' parliaments
before taking effect. The U.S. government has urged Turkey to approve
the protocols as soon as possible.

Turkey and Armenia have been bogged down in a row over the deaths of
Armenians under Ottoman rule during the World War I. Armenians claim
that more than 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic
genocide then, but the Turkish government insists the Armenians were
victims of widespread chaos and governmental breakdown as the Ottoman
empire collapsed before modern Turkey was created in 1923.

[gegev]

The people who are 100% sure that they can fool Armenians on the AG issue, are chronic fools. Whether the under-developed is from a “developed” or other country. As a teacher I know that: most kids learn before talking, and just a few start their first steps with giving speeches.

[Mukuch]

Re: I support the rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia a good step forward

The rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia I support very much as this will be able to assist in the letting go of the past that has poisoned Turkish-Armenian relations for years.

With Turkey and Armenia establishing relations, this is a key area of Democracy which is to cooperate with neighboring partners and to establish a good framework in which Turkey and Armenia can work together collectively. Both countries can show tolerance and more understanding.

This is a step forward for reconciliation and the two countries working together in a responsible and mature way.

Turkey and Armenia should ratify this agreement as it would ensure stability and peace among neighboring countries and between Turkey and Armenia.

The European approach of tackling issues together is very important for Turkey and Armenia to embrace.

Typical turkish point of view. Letting go the past? Why? Why we should let it go? The only ones who is interested in forgetting the past are turks. They want to forget their cannibal past. We will not forget. WE MUST NOT FORGET! Let the past to spit on face of turks every time mentioned! Than maybe turks will become humans and we will think about "tolerant and more understanding

[londontsi]

Re: I support the rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia a good step forward

The rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia I support very much as this will be able to assist in the letting go of the past that has poisoned Turkish-Armenian relations for years.

This protocol is NOT about letting go of the past.

Its all about having a civilized neighborly relations.
Indeed the Armenian nation should never forget the past.

[JohnCanadian]

I support the rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia a good step forward

The rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia I support very much as this will be able to assist in the letting go of the past that has poisoned Turkish-Armenian relations for years.

With Turkey and Armenia establishing relations, this is a key area of Democracy which is to cooperate with neighboring partners and to establish a good framework in which Turkey and Armenia can work together collectively. Both countries can show tolerance and more understanding.

This is a step forward for reconciliation and the two countries working together in a responsible and mature way.

Turkey and Armenia should ratify this agreement as it would ensure stability and peace among neighboring countries and between Turkey and Armenia.

The European approach of tackling issues together is very important for Turkey and Armenia to embrace.