The Armenian question at a Swiss Embassy lunch

Sunday, May 21, 2006

The Swiss ambassador in Ankara, Walter Gyger, invited Gündüz Aktan and myself to a lunch for four that included his counselor, Mr. Beer, to discuss what Switzerland can do next on the Armenian question, which had involved his embassy negatively

YÜKSEL SÖYLEMEZ

The Swiss ambassador in Ankara, Walter Gyger, invited Gündüz Aktan and myself to a lunch for four that included his counselor, Mr. Beer, to discuss what Switzerland can do next on the Armenian question, which had involved his embassy negatively. His suggestion, in a nutshell after a long discussion, was to follow the Swiss example and entrust the question to an international commission of reputable historians for an advisory opinion on the basis of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s offer. Aktan had reservations about the idea because of the surprising report of the self-appointed Armenian-Turkish Conciliation Commission.

As I reminded Ambassador Gyger, who must already know from his Turkish wife, the Armenian diaspora has been on the attack for the last 80 years or more. First the Ottoman, then the republican reaction against it for at least four decades was to avoid the question as if it did not exist. My generation of educated people and intellectuals woke up overnight to the tragic reality when the Armenian terror organization ASALA started assassinating Turkish diplomats in San Francisco, Vienna, Paris, Belgrade, Sydney, Madrid, The Hague, Lisbon and Los Angeles.

I told him that better late than never the Turks have now started to defend themselves against a heavy barrage of Armenian propaganda — thousands of publications many with exaggerations, fabrications and even lies presented as facts to the Western world. In fact, the West was more than willing to accept the Armenian allegations without even bothering to question their validity, whether or not they were true or false. After all, the ground was fertile as far back as the 1860s when European and American missionaries first came to eastern Turkey to train, convert and mobilize the Armenians in their interest against “the terrible Turk.” Ambassador Gyger listened, nodding his head with apparent interest in what he heard and what he doubtless already knew.

Against all these years of Armenian propaganda there was a deafening silence on the Turkish side that was taken by the Western world as an admission of guilt. When the Turks eventually, during the ’70s took up a defensive position, it was already too late and the guilty-without-trial verdict was already hanging around their necks. “Turks were guilty of the crime of genocide of over one-and-a-half-million Armenians.” Nobody questioned whether there were that many Armenians in Anatolia then, and until recently it did not matter, but the allegation stuck without a question mark. The West never bothered to ask why the Ottoman Turks, all of a sudden, after a cohabitation of 600 years, started to slaughter their Ottoman neighbors overnight (there were no Armenian ghettos) after centuries of togetherness.

I reminded Ambassador Gyger that the Armenians were promised an Armenian homeland in eastern Turkey at the expense of the Turks at the Sevres conference in Paris by the victors of World War I. This was to be stillborn, never to see the light of day, a treaty never to be ratified by any of the participants. In that conference “the Armenian delegation claimed that there were combatants during the war,” which was an admission of the fact that it was a civil war within World War I. Armenians joining forces with the enemy Russians knew they were traitors to the sultan, who had mistakenly described them as the most loyal nation of the empire — “Milleti Sadıka.”

The Armenian Ottomans had lost a bloody revolt within a civil war but then successfully engineered it to turn this defeat into an international propaganda victory at the expense of the Turkish Republic. It was because of the instigation of this diaspora lobby that the United States did not recognize the young Turkish Republic until 1927, four long years after the establishment of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s republic.

Turkey’s efforts at defense fell on deaf ears, so much so that 16 national parliaments in Europe passed similar resolutions claiming that “what happened to the Ottoman Armenians during the years of the World War I was genocide.” Thirty-six states in the United States passed similar resolutions. France passed a one sentence law declaring “France recognizes the Armenian genocide,” the denial of which is proposed to become a criminal act. It is an outrageous and preposterous move by a national parliament against freedom of expression.

Ambassador Gyger stressed that the Swiss case is somewhat particular. While two local parliaments have recognized the Genocide at federal level, only one chamber of its Parliament has passed a resolution. Since Switzerland has a bicameral system, no legally binding decisions can be taken without the approval of both chambers. This is, according to Ambassador Gyger, not the case. However, there is an article in the Swiss penal code prohibiting racist statements, and within this article there is a subparagraph specifically prohibiting the negations of genocides which has never been applied until now. Following statements made by Professor Halaçoğlu and Doğu Perinçek while they were in Switzerland legal procedures were opened against them, and these are still under way. No indictment or sentence has been pronounced as yet and it may take quite some time for the Swiss judges to issue their opinion on this matter. Ambassador Gyger explained to us the position of the federal government, which is the only body in charge of formulating Swiss foreign policy on this. The opinion of the Swiss government, while regretting the tragic incidents which occurred at the end of the Ottoman Empire and condemning those who were responsible for them is that the whole matter should be studied by historians. This explains the position of Ambassador Gyger in suggesting the establishment of an international commission of reputable and independent historians.

I explained to the ambassador that Turkey is now facing a pro-Armenian international front joining forces with the Armenian Diaspora, which is organizing, encouraging and supporting the whole campaign, though this is in fact contrary to the interests of Armenia proper.

Turkey has now opened most of its archives as a new line of defense and proposed the same be done in Armenia and elsewhere. The Erdoğan government proposed a commission be established, consisting of historians and others, to research the historic facts, which the Armenian side rejected offhand as “the matter is long established and there is nothing to research — it is established fact that there was genocide committed against the Armenian Ottomans by the Union and Progress Party and its leaders, so there is no room for further debate or discussion.”

I also observed that a new era of research and debate in Turkey is obviously here, with or without Armenian participation, moreover there are some Turkish academics who sympathize with the Armenian view that a crime was committed against the Ottoman Armenians by the Ottoman Turks, which demonstrates that the Turkish side is ready to question stereotyped opinions and hear opposing views, with new facts and research coming out every day, especially from the Russian archives.

An international commission of reputable historians and intellectuals should be carefully selected to research the facts, with the aim of reaching a conclusion on the issues. This may sound theoretically to be a good idea, but bearing in mind all the dangers inherent, even the most objective of eminent personalities may be laden with human bias. The Armenian side cold-shouldered the idea proposed by Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdoğan, though it was generally welcomed by the international media and interested governments.

It was the well-read and much respected columnist of Radikal daily, Gündüz Aktan, who originally put forward the idea of submitting the question to the International Court of Justice of the United Nations with a proper question, perhaps something like: “Does what happened in the 1915 war conditions within the Ottoman Empire amount to genocide or not? Is the U.N. Convention on Genocide applicable to 1915 or not?” His proposal found no echo on the Armenian side and received no support at the time but is now being seriously considered and convinced Dr. Şükrü Elekdağ, a former career diplomat of established repute, now a member of Parliament, who has studied in detail the viability and validity of this idea and concludes that it should be pursued in the International Court of Justice at The Hague. I suggested Ambassador Gyger should meet him and read the scholarly paper he has prepared on this proposal. His main premise, as I understand it, is to have the question removed from the political propaganda arena and put to test on a legal platform either through the International Court of Justice or through international arbitration, which the Armenian side have been shying away from by keeping the question in the political arena.

Aktan said to Ambassador Gyger that Elekdağ contends, and quite rightly, that Turkey has nothing to fear from the 1948 Genocide Convention of the U.N., as it cannot be applied to the 1915 tragedy for various legal reasons, as the Armenian side know full well.

As Ambassador Gyger also agreed, at least an advisory opinion of the International Court at the Hague would clear the air once and for all. But I stressed that the Armenian Diaspora does not see any gain in solving the problem and wish to continue using, misusing and exploiting it against Turkey.