Turkish and Armenian Rapprochement: Hope or Hoax?
New America Media, Editorial, Hayg Oshagan/Doğu Ergil, Posted: Oct 27, 2009
The Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers signed an accord in Zurich on Oct. 10 that reopens the border between the two countries, closed since 1993, and creates a joint historical commission to determine what actually happened in 1915. The deal needs parliamentary approval in both countries, and Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan faces opposition from the Armenian diaspora. Is the agreement between the two countries a step forward or a capitulation? Here are two viewpoints from two academics - one Turkish, one Armenian-American.
There is good reason why most Armenians, not just those in the Diaspora, are up in arms about the Armenian-Turkish protocol says Hayg Oshagan, professor of at Wayne State University, Detroit. Read why he thinks The Turkey-Armenia Agreement Is a Farce.
But others differ. The frozen history between Armenia and Turkey has begun to thaw with the signing of the protocols in Zurich on Oct. 10, aiming at initiating diplomatic relations and opening up borders says Doğu Ergil, in an editorial for Today's Zaman, a bilingual Turkish-English weekly. He thinks this accord is a brave step aimed at Reducing Historical Baggage.
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User Comments
Abdel Hameed m.Sadiq on Oct 29, 2009 at 10:23:39 said:
History repeats itself.Every time there exist chronic animosities,human beings try to overcome challenges that lower hostilities to curb further bloodshed.Now it is the turn of armenia and Turkey to heal rifts,and enable future generations to live peacefully.
Lucine Kasbarian on Oct 28, 2009 at 08:51:05 said:
New America Media (NAM) is a US media effort that republishes articles that have appeared in the US ethnic press. So why, at the end of the following article by American citizen and communications professor Hayg Oshagan, does NAM provide a link to an article available on the NAM site that is written by a Turkish national and taken from Today's Zaman, a newspaper published in Turkey? In that essay, the Turkish-based writer, Dogu Ergil, sings a familiar tune: blames the descendants of the Genocide victims living in the Diaspora as a the source of the troubles between Turkey and Armenia, claims that the Diaspora is far removed from the problems in the Caucasus region and hence have no rights to weigh in on these issues, and claims that the Diaspora has now been "neutralized" from causing harm to Turkey with the arrival of the Protocols. Does Ergil and do NAM editors really think that by republishing this denialist essay in NAM, that NAM can erroneously claim that doing so is an effort to "fairly present two sides of an issue?"
Whereas speakers and writers in Turkey who exercise free speech by "weighing in" on the Genocide issue face punishment, imprisonment and even assassination, by publishing Ergil's piece, NAM editors have imported from Turkey its long-held denialist narrative on an American audience. What's next? Will NAM editors publish an article memorializing the Holocaust, written by an American (say Alan Dershowitz) and then as a counterpoint, provide a link on its site to another article written by an Iranian citizen (say Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) that denies the Holocaust? NAM, you have already done it by publishing Ergil’s essay. If we really wish to afford everyone the right to free speech, I challenge NAM to follow through on the Dershowitz/Ahmadinejad scenario above, and to arrange for Hayg Oshagan’s article to appear in media outlets in Turkey!
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