By Weekly Staff on October 8, 2014
San Francisco, Calif. (A.W.)—Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof told Michael Krasny, host of KQED radio’s Forum program, that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told him in no uncertain terms that he did not believe what happened to the Armenians was genocide, during the show’s Oct. 7 broadcast. Answering a question from a caller about the Armenian genocide, Krasny said, “It’s worse than denial—I had the Turkish ambassador on and he said there was no genocide, literally. Not only there was no genocide, it was trumped up, it was conspiratorial.” Kristof, in turn, said, “President Erdogan has told me that to my face, invited me to look through Ottoman archives. The sense of denial is extraordinary.”
Kristof, who is also the co-author of A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunities, is partly of Armenian descent (his father was an Armenian from Romania), and has written on the topic of the Armenian Genocide in the past.
In 2010, in a column titled “Speaking Not as an Armenian,” Kristof wrote: “…I do think the evidence is clear that genocide is the right word for what happened, and that’s why I always refer to it as the Armenian genocide. It’s also true that Turkey has a problem acknowledging its brutality toward both Armenians and Kurds, although it has also gotten much better about this in the last decade. I’ve discussed the issue with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan a couple of times, and he is light years ahead of his predecessors (and still a few light years behind what is needed).”
Kristof’s aforementioned column argued against Congress passing resolutions on the Armenian Genocide, suggesting that instead, “We should be trying to nurture Turkey further along its path of conciliation toward Armenians and the Kurds. Smacking them—even for real historical sins—isn’t a great way to do that. Anybody who thinks that diplomacy is about telling the truth doesn’t know diplomacy.”
In his columns, Kristof focuses on human rights abuses and ongoing atrocities around the world, hoping to mobilize international, and particularly U.S. efforts to stop them. His advocacy surrounding the Darfur Genocide is especially noteworthy. He has cited the Armenian case, and the world’s inaction in the face of those atrocities, in his calls for action.
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Speaking Not as an Armenian…
By Nicholas Kristof
March 5, 2010 4:11 pmMarch 5, 2010 4:11 pm
Congress has invariably refused to take any serious measure against genocide while it is underway. So is it progress that the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted yesterday to condemn the 1915 genocide of Armenians? Is it worthwhile for Congress to deal with genocide at some level, even if it’s 95 years late?
First, a few requisite disclosures. I am partly Armenian (my father created Kristof out of Krzysztofowicz, which was a Polonized version of Hachikian, a good Armenian name). My ancestors were in Poland and Romania, not in the Ottoman empire, so there are no family stories about the genocide. But I do think the evidence is clear that genocide is the right word for what happened, and that’s why I always refer to it as the Armenian genocide. It’s also true that Turkey has a problem acknowledging its brutality toward both Armenians and Kurds, although it has also gotten much better about this in the last decade. I’ve discussed the issue with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan a couple of times, and he is light years ahead of his predecessors (and still a few light years behind what is needed).
The problem is that I don’t really see what business the 1915 genocide is of Congress, especially at a time when it can’t address so many urgent problems of today. If Congress starts getting derailed by looking at past iniquities, it’ll never get to present business. And it’s not as if the resolution will help Armenians anywhere. On the contrary, the backlash will probably harm the recent thaw in Turkey-Armenian relations, which really was an important development for the region. That Armenian-Turkish reconciliation is something that Congress could have passed a resolution to support.
Politicians, Barack Obama included, often talk when in campaign mode about the Armenian genocide, because they want Armenian-American votes. But in office, they try to kill these resolutions rather than gratuitously offend an ally. That’s why Secretary Clinton passed word at the last minute that the resolution was a bad idea.
Is it silly for Turkey to be offended by the resolution? Yes, but we’d probably be offended if all of Europe started passing resolutions denouncing our 19th century genocidal policy toward Native Americans, or our early 20th century quasi-genocide in Philippines. We should be trying to nurture Turkey further along its path of conciliation toward Armenians and the Kurds. Smacking them — even for real historical sins — isn’t a great way to do that. Anybody who thinks that diplomacy is about telling the truth doesn’t know diplomacy.
Already today, I’ve had a couple of emails saying that the real story here is that Israel is trying to punish Turkey for its harsh criticisms since the Gaza invasion of late 2008. (According to Ha’aretz, Israel went from opposing the resolution to neutral.) That narrative is likely to take hold in the Islamic world and encourage the fundamentalists and nationalists in Turkey. Bolstering Turkish nationalism doesn’t sound like the best way to honor victims of the Armenian genocide.
So if Congress wants to pass resolutions, why doesn’t it pass one condemning United States passivity in 1915 as the genocide was happening? Our embassy in the Ottoman Empire was sending back cables making clear the scale of the slaughter and pleading for action, but President Woodrow Wilson didn’t want to get involved. So before we go and muddy waters abroad, some self-criticism might be useful
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