Re: Obama Recognizes Armenian Genocide
I always felt it was in Turkey's interest to accept the Armenian Genocide, as it would signal a more tolerant and less chauvinistic Turkey. Obama in today's speech to the Turkish Parliament did refer to the Ottoman Islamic driven massacres of Anatolian Christians (which shows he is no push-over, he could have easily not brought it up at all), but was short of saying the politically charged G word.
This in the short term was very smart. Who says he had to fulfill his campaign promise of awknowledging the Armenian Genocide right away? As Obama said, relations between Armenia and Turkey are improving, the border might even eventually be opened. Describing the massacres as genocide now would embolden extreme Turkish nationalists and support their claim that reconciliation of Armenia and Turkey is part of the USA's grand scheme to weaken Turkey.
This is a very optimistic view, but perhaps Obama is waiting for relations to be normalized between Armenia and Turkey before awknowleding the Armenian Genocide. And anyway, the American-Armenian Lobby has no interest in peace between Turks and Armenia and is thankfully now in a very weak position.
Perhaps, the term "Genocide" will be replaced with the "Great Calamity", as the massacres were originally referred to. As Bell suggested, Genocide is a legal term, and implies reparations by the Turkish government, which in all honesty I am against. My main desire is to see Turkish citizens of Armenian descent be in peaceful co-existence, as Armenians, with the Turkish people and government.
I always felt it was in Turkey's interest to accept the Armenian Genocide, as it would signal a more tolerant and less chauvinistic Turkey. Obama in today's speech to the Turkish Parliament did refer to the Ottoman Islamic driven massacres of Anatolian Christians (which shows he is no push-over, he could have easily not brought it up at all), but was short of saying the politically charged G word.
This in the short term was very smart. Who says he had to fulfill his campaign promise of awknowledging the Armenian Genocide right away? As Obama said, relations between Armenia and Turkey are improving, the border might even eventually be opened. Describing the massacres as genocide now would embolden extreme Turkish nationalists and support their claim that reconciliation of Armenia and Turkey is part of the USA's grand scheme to weaken Turkey.
This is a very optimistic view, but perhaps Obama is waiting for relations to be normalized between Armenia and Turkey before awknowleding the Armenian Genocide. And anyway, the American-Armenian Lobby has no interest in peace between Turks and Armenia and is thankfully now in a very weak position.
Perhaps, the term "Genocide" will be replaced with the "Great Calamity", as the massacres were originally referred to. As Bell suggested, Genocide is a legal term, and implies reparations by the Turkish government, which in all honesty I am against. My main desire is to see Turkish citizens of Armenian descent be in peaceful co-existence, as Armenians, with the Turkish people and government.
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