Mass Politics

I have an article and photo essay up on the Eurasianet website about yesterday's historic mass at the Akdamar island Armenian church in eastern Turkey's Lake Van. It was the first time a mass had been held in the church in 95 years and the event saw the largest number of Armenians in the Van area since 1915, when they were either driven or wiped out by the Ottoman authorities.

Although the event was seen by some as an elaborate public relations effort on behalf of the Turkish government and there was some controversy over the Turkish authorities failure to place a cross on the church's roof (its name in Armenian is, after all, "Church of the Holy Cross"), I still think the event was a significant one, in terms of getting Turks to come to terms with the fact that their country actually has an Armenian history and that Armenians can stake a claim (in historical and cultural terms) to parts of Turkey.

From my article:

As an Armenian growing up in Basra, Iraq, Vanuhi Ohannesian was always hearing about eastern Turkey’s Lake Van region, her grandparents’ birthplace and the place after which she is named.

Ohannesian’s grandparents were forced to leave the lakeside city of Van in 1915, when the Ottoman authorities drove out the region’s ethnic Armenians; her father was born during the family’s trek from Van to safety in Iraq.

“My father died two years ago and was always telling me to come to Van. He said this was our motherland,” said 68-year-old Ohannesian, who today lives in Los Angeles.

Some 95 years after her grandparents’ flight from Turkey, Ohannesian finds herself standing beside one of the Armenians’ most sacred sites, the 1,089-year-old church on Lake Van’s Akdamar Island. Closed since 1915, the island church was restored by the Turkish authorities between 2005 and 2007 and reopened as a museum.

On September 19, the authorities allowed a historic mass to be held on Akdamar, an event that drew several thousand visitors to the island throughout the day, including many Armenians from abroad, such as Ohannesian, who had never been to Turkey before.

“I never believed I would be coming here,” said Ohannesian, standing on a small hill that overlooks the church and holding a small bottle filled with lake water which she plans to bring back to Los Angeles and place at her father’s grave. “We believed people didn’t change, that if they did something once, they would do it again....”

....Cengiz Aktar, director of the European Studies Department at Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University, says the event may have been symbolic, but it also represents a deeper, more encouraging dynamic.

“It’s part of a slow but steady process of normalization regarding the non-Muslim minorities in Turkey and the glorious past of coexistence of religions in this land that was shattered by the emergence of the nation state,” said Aktar, who is active in civil society Turkish-Armenian reconciliation efforts.

“At the end of the day, there is a reality that is unearthed,” he continued. “This is what should prevail. At the end of the day, we are rediscovering the Armenian past in this region.”

You can find the full article here, and the accompanying photoessay here.

(photo: view of the Akdamar church in Lake Van, Turkey, taken in 2006. Photo by Yigal Schleifer)

Protocols on the Rocks, Cont.

I didn't get a chance to post this earlier, but I have a piece up on the (redesigned!) Eurasianet website that looks at the impact Turkey's domestic politics are having on the troubled Turkish-Armenian reconciliation process. From the piece:

Publicly, Turkish officials express their continued support for a rapprochement process with Armenia, despite Yerevan having recently suspended the ratification process for peace protocols signed with Ankara last October. But observers say that political considerations are making it very difficult for Turkey to move forward on the issue.

"Unfortunately, everything has been frozen," says Noyan Soyak, the Istanbul-based Vice-Chairman of the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council.

"There isn’t an agreement now on even basic points. We don’t see any minimum agreement to move forward, which is unfortunate, because we believed that this?. was a unique period," Soyak continued. "It was a very important chance that was given to both countries by the international community, but both countries couldn’t use the chance to solve the problems, or even talk about the problems...."

....Turkish officials say that from their perspective, the protocols are still alive. "The protocols are waiting in my drawer to be overseen by the committee. They are not frozen," says Murat Mercan, a member of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and chairman of the Turkish parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Speaking before parliament in late April, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu insisted that Turkey remains committed to improving its relations with Armenia.

"We can opt for preserving the status quo and we can live happily and comfortably for a while as a result. But we will end up leaving a troubled Caucasus to our grandchildren," Davutoglu said. "The status quo in the Caucasus is not in the interests of Turkey or Azerbaijan or Armenia or Russia, but so far no brave step has been taken to change it. Now, what we want is to change it."

"Our parliaments will ratify the protocols when political conditions are ripe," he added.

But Cengiz Aktar, director of the European Studies Department at Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University says he believes there will be little progress on the Armenian issue until after the next Turkish general elections, which are scheduled for 2011. "The parliamentary opposition is dead set against these protocols and they want the protocols to be withdrawn from where they are in the [foreign affairs] commission," Aktar says. "The government cannot take the risk of another battlefront with the opposition, in addition to the other things they have going on. That is the position."

You can read the full piece here.

A New Look at the Armenian Genocide Issue

Der Spiegel's English-language website has a very interesting article about a new German documentary that looks into the Armenian genocide issue. You can read the article here.

The website also has a new interview with Armenian President Serge Sarkisian, who talks about the stalled reconciliation process with Turkey and about the role the genocide issue plays in Armenian politics and society. You can read it here.

The "Erdogan Factor" Returns

The great wild card in Turkish politics continues to be Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his shoot-from-the-hip take on things. From Darfur to Xinjiang, the "Erdogan Factor" (as previously discussed in this post) has frequently left Turkey watchers scratching their heads and Turkish policy makers picking up the pieces.

Erdogan's straight-talk express recently arrived in London, where the PM gave an interview to the BBC's Turkish-language service. In the interview (here, in Turkish) Erdogan suggested that one of the results of the recent Armenian genocide resolutions passed in Sweden and the United States could be the mass expulsion from Turkey of the thousands of Armenians working illegally in the country. "There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our country,” Erdogan told the BBC . “Only 70,000 of them are Turkish citizens, but we are tolerating the remaining 100,000. If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don’t have to keep them in my country.”

This is disturbing stuff on so many levels. Turkey is clearly not gearing up to do what Erdogan is suggesting might happen, but dragging the illegal Armenian workers into the dispute as a way of threatening Armenia and its politically active diaspora has ominous and unfortunate connotations. Analyst Mehmet Ali Birand makes the obvious point that merely invoking the possibility of a mass deportations in this case makes for truly bad politics. From his column in today's Hurriyet Daily News:

Now a smear campaign in the lines of “Turkey as a perpetrator of genocide did not want the poor Armenians to earn a few bucks” will start and people talk in purple prose saying, “In the past they killed millions of people and now they will condemn 100,000 Armenians to death by starving....”

....They’d say, “See, again the Turks are casting out the Armenians.”

And this action would be labeled “second deportation.”

You can read his full column here.

Today's Zaman, meanwhile, steps out of the Ergenekon/Balyoz thicket that it seems to have gotten lost in these days and, in today's paper, comes up with a journalistically solid piece, one that takes the PM to task for what he said and gets down to answering the important question of just how many Armenian illegals are actually working in Turkey? From the article:

Öztürk Türkdoğan, the chairman of the Human Rights Association (İHD), said Erdoğan’s remarks could easily be considered a “threat” and as discrimination. “These remarks could lead some people to think that to expel people is a 2010 version of forced migration. This mentality is far from human rights-oriented thinking. People have the right to work, and this is universal. There are many Turkish workers all over the world; does it mean that Turkey will accept their expulsion when there is an international problem? Secondly, these remarks are discriminatory; there are many workers in Turkey of different nationalities,” he said....

....The İHD’s Türkdoğan was also critical of Erdoğan’s remarks regarding ethnically Armenian Turkish citizens: “We can see that the classic republican understanding based on ethnic Turkism is still valid. Minorities cannot be the subject of bargaining in international relations. This is racist discourse and only proves how far we are from a human rights-oriented perspective,” Türkdoğan said.

You can read the full piece here.

Based on its reporting, Today's Zaman estimates that there are probably 12,000 to 13,000 Armenians working illegally in Turkey, rather than 100,000 (94 percent of them are women, most likely doing domestic work). (A report on the issue from the Eurasia Partnership Foundation Armenia can be found here.) It appears that the number has been inflated over the years, perhaps so that it can be used as a political bargaining chip with Armenia and as an instrument for trumpeting Turkish tolerance.

Certainly, some of the damage control that members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have tried to do in the wake of Erdogan's comments has smacked of this.

“As has been known for many years, there are Armenians illegally living and working in Turkey, and as a reflection of our goodwill and efforts toward normalization which started in 2005, we do not really touch them," AKP member of parliament Suat Kiniklioglu told Today's Zaman.

"We tolerate them and take their difficult circumstances into consideration. In particular, we are not questioning their status due to the acceleration of the normalization process in Turkish-Armenian relations. The prime minister needed to draw this fact to people’s attention, especially now, when resolutions have been accepted which damage normalization. I think Turkey’s magnanimity is being ignored.”

Erdogan's comment about the illegal Armenians also ended up obscuring some of the more important and to-the-point comments that he made in the BBC interview. One of these comments was about the need for Armenia to break free from the hold of its diaspora, but his remarks about the illegals were a gift-wrapped present for the diaspora and its political lobby, which is intent on portraying Turkey as unrepentant country that has learned little from the past.

Like Déjà vu All Over Again

There are moments in a nation’s history when the threats are so great that all political divisions and disagreements need to be thrown aside in an effort to defend the motherland. For Turkey, that moment comes almost once every year, when it’s time for the country to fight yet another attempt to pass a bill in Washington recognizing the Armenian genocide.

A House of Representatives committee is set to vote on a “genocide” resolution tomorrow and teams of Turkish politicians from both sides of the deep political divide in Ankara have been dispatched to Washington to lobby against the effort getting any farther (while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already warned that Turkish-American relations could be harmed if Congress passes a resolution).

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its main rival, the Republican Peoples Party (CHP) can’t see eye-to-eye on some of the most critical issues facing Turkey – the country’s EU bid or revising the problematic constitution, for example – but the bitter political rivals have agreed to work together on fighting the genocide claim. I almost choked on my coffee this morning when I saw a photo in the paper of AKP parliamentarian Murat Mercan sitting together in Washington with the CHP’s Sukru Elekdag, an old school (if not retrograde) Kemalist who has been at the forefront of fighting the genocide claim for decades. Back in Ankara these two have very little to say to each other, but there they were making Turkey’s case together. In the American context, try imagining rookie Democratic Senator Al Franken hitting the road to lobby on behalf of American policy with late Republican Senator Jesse Helms. It’s something like that.

This year, of course, was supposed to be different. The historic accords that Turkey and Armenia signed this past October to restore diplomatic relations and put in motion a process to examine the past, were supposed to take the legs out from under any effort to tar Turkey with the “genocide” label. But, because of domestic and regional pressures, neither Ankara nor Yerevan has ratified the accords, leaving Turkey once again exposed on the issue.

The problem is that it’s not only Turkey that’s exposed – it’s also Washington. As it has before, the administration will ultimately get dragged into Ankara’s battle on Capital Hill against the “genocide” bill. Previous administrations, worried about a rupture with Turkey, have stepped in and asked Congress to shelve such bills. And although during his presidential campaign Barack Obama promised to recognize the genocide, in his statement released during last year’s April 24 commemoration of the event, the President – careful not to upset the delicate negotiations that were taking place at the time between Ankara and Yerevan – took the Solomonic approach of calling it by its Armenian name, medz yeghern (or “great catastrophe”). But after going out on a limb for Turkey last year on the genocide issue because of not wanting to harm the Armenia talks, will Obama and others in Washington do the same thing again this time around, especially considering that Ankara has played a decisive role in the freezing of the accords process?

The picture does not look good, certainly for those who were hoping that the deal signed between Ankara and Yerevan would get all the countries involved out of this lose-lose cycle. At the same time, a recent 60 Minutes episode (or the “provocation,” as one Turkish paper called it in its front-page headline) on the genocide issue was a good reminder of just why Turkey will continue to fight the claim so hard. The word “genocide” obviously brings up the image of the Nazis and the Holocaust, things no country wants to have associated with it, but the 60 Minutes episode charges the Ottoman Turks with actually creating the blueprint for the kind of mass killing that the Third Reich ultimately perfected. That’s a charge that's even harder for Ankara to swallow, particularly on an issue that cuts to the core of Turkish national pride. You can watch the episode here.

Meanwhile, for a good look at just how much political cynicism surrounds the Armenian genocide issue, take a look at this op-ed by Turkey expert Henri Barkey in today’s Washington Post. Previous post on the Armenian issue can be found here.

Turkey Doth Protest Too Much?

Today's Zaman has an interview today with Richard Giragosian, director of the Yerevan-based Armenian Center for National and International Studies, about the new tension between Turkey and Armenia over their recently signed normalization accords. Giragosian has some fairly tart things to say about Ankara's criticism of the language used in the Armenian Constitutional Court's recent decision to accept the accords.

From the interview:

"I find the Turkish reaction not only disingenuous but unfair, as there was never any doubt over the Armenian side’s commitment to ensure a speedy and full passage of the protocols,” he said and added that Turkey might be looking to create a new political “pretext” to withdraw from the protocols....

....Asked what will come next, Giragosian said the situation is not very promising.

“Turkey has so far only sought to enlarge this into an issue much more divisive than it should be,” he said. “Hopefully, both sides can recover and find a new way beyond this rather exaggerated crisis, but it now remains a test of Turkish political will much more than a challenge for the Armenian side.”

You can read the full article here.

Worth noting that one of the reasons Giragosian gives for why he thinks Turkey is overplaying things is that, considering the lack of independence found in Armenia's judicial system and the government's wish to have the accords approved, the Constitutional Court's (preordained) decision doesn't really amount to much. Not a great statement about the state of democratic affairs in Armenia.

Accords in Discord

It appears that both sides in the shotgun wedding that is the stalled Turkish-Armenian reconciliation process might be looking for a way out. Ankara has warned Yerevan, in fairly strong terms, that the conditions that the Armenian Constitutional Court has put on the historic accords are unacceptable and could jeopardize the process. Yerevan, meanwhile, is reminding Ankara that it is the one that put preconditions on the process, by linking it to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, and by letting the accords languish in parliament.

Milliyet's Semih Idiz has a good column in today's Hurriyet Daily News looking at how each side in the matter is giving the other one the excuse it needs to get out of the forced arrangement. From his column:

It is clear, however, that these protocols are not moving. There is a tangible reluctance and reserve on both sides in this respect. The Recep Tayyip Erdoğan government is not blameless either having effectively slapped a “Karabakh condition” on the ratification of the protocols by the Turkish Parliament.

Erdoğan boasts that “his government is one step ahead of the Armenian government,” having sent the protocols to Parliament for ratification. He argues that the rest is up to Parliament now.

In the meantime he keeps insisting that it is unlikely that Parliament will ratify the protocols, unless there is movement on the Karabakh front to Azerbaijan’s advantage.

This is completely disingenuous.

Erdoğan is playing to the political gallery because he knows there is serious opposition in Turkey to the protocols. If he wanted to show real leadership, however, he could guide his party, which has a majority in Parliament, to vote for the protocols without delay.

Some argue, of course, that many of Erdoğan’s own deputies would vote against the protocols given the sensitivity of all issues related to Armenia and Armenians. If so, that begs an even bigger question. Why did the Erdoğan government initiate this process in the first place then if it was not going to be able to complete it?

In the meantime, the confusing ruling of the Constitutional Court has given a fresh argument for those in Ankara who are reluctant about the Turkish-Armenian process.

Neither does there seem to be extreme enthusiasm in Yerevan over the issue.

The government there has said it will only endorse the protocols if the Turkish Parliament does and hence the current stalemate. It also appears to be doing little to support the protocols in public against harsh opposition and criticism.

Put openly, there is no will in Ankara or Yerevan at the present time to find a way to move forward in their ties. If there was, that way forward would be found regardless of the difficulties.

You can read the whole piece here. For some background on the accords and the hurdles facing them, take a look this previous post.

(Photo: the Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers shaking hands after signing their October accords agreement in Zurich.)

The Closing of the "Armenian Opening"?

While I'm at it, might as well look at another significant Turkish policy move that now seems to be in trouble: the rapprochement with Armenia.

Although Turkey and Armenia signed an agreement in October that paves the way for the two countries to restore relations and open up their borders, the document still needs to be ratified by both countries' parliaments. There has been little action on that front in either Ankara or Yerevan. Turkey has clearly been reluctant to move ahead with its "Armenian opening" without any movement on the stalled Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Armenia insists the two issues should not be linked.

Now it seems Yerevan is losing patience. From an AFP report:

"Armenia is prepared to honor its international commitments and we expect the same from Turkey," President Serge Sarkisian said during a press conference with his Latvian counterpart, Valdis Zatlers.

"If Turkey drags out the ratification process, Armenia will immediately make use of possibilities stemming from international law. I have instructed relevant state bodies to prepare amendments to our laws pertaining to the signing, ratification and abrogation of international agreements," Sarkisian said.

For more information on the hurdles facing Turkey and Armenia's rapprochement, take a look at this previous post.

"What Obama Should Say to Erdogan"

Hugh Pope, the International Crisis Group's Turkey analyst -- who just returned from a two-month fellowship at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington -- has a new paper out ahead of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Monday visit to the White House. The paper, published by the Transatlantic Academy, takes a close look at two areas in which Washington has an interest in pushing Ankara along, its normalization process with Armenia and its European Union membership process, and also helpfully unpackages the debate over Turkey's perceived eastward "drift."

From Pope's paper:

On 7 December, U.S. President Barack Obama receives the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At a time of growing mutual suspicions, a face-to-face meeting will be of great importance between two men renowned for their straight-to-the-point frankness. There is arguably no other country in the world with so many areas of common interest with the United States, and yet Turkey both rashly overrates itself and is little understood and underrated in Washington.

A steadying hand should be the two leaders’ first order of business. Just as a surprising number of Turks expend their energy analyzing Washington’s supposedly nefarious plots to split up their country, a growing number of Americans interested in Turkey are just as busy analyzing Ankara’s latest supposed conspiracies against transatlantic and U.S. interests: is it abandoning the West in favour of a neo-Ottoman dominion in the East? Is it loosening its half-century-old security anchor in NATO? Where is Erdogan’s rough-tongued criticism of Israel leading? Is the innovating prime minister’s feud with the Kemalist establishment turning him into a dictator? Do grandiose Turkish stands alongside authoritarian anti-Western regimes in the Middle East make Turkey “Islamist”? And is Turkey turning away from its U.S.-backed ambition of membership of the European Union?

The answer to all this is short: none of the above. In fact, Obama and U.S. officials can start out with grateful recognition to the Turkish chief executive for the many areas in which the Turkish policy is closely aligned with the United States. Praise is deserved for Ankara’s role in what progress has been made in Iraq, itself largely due to an about-turn in U.S. attitudes to cooperating with Turkey in 2007. Turkey has been strongly supportive in Afghanistan and might to more; it is also helpful behind the scenes in Pakistan. The U.S. could go so far as to recognize that Turkey’s goals and achievements in the region -- freer travel between itself and several states, increasing intra-regional trade, joint Cabinet meetings, and projects to knit regional infrastructure together – offer a promising path towards greater stability, security, prosperity and better governance in a traumatized Middle East. Despite its exaggerated self-image as a critical regional dynamo – in fact, Turkey is better compared to a large car with an underpowered engine – its new track record compares positively to the West’s controversial actions in the Middle East in past decades.

The U.S. and Turkey should resist what will be a temptation on both sides to spend the short time they have on their differences over Iran, Sudan or Israel/Palestine. For sure, the U.S. side needs to impress diplomatically on Prime Minister Erdogan how much his populist rhetoric in support of anti-Western bugbears is damaging Turkey’s position with its key partners and pro-Turkey constituencies in Washington and Brussels. And the U.S. should listen for any new message Erdogan might be bringing from his recent visits to Iran and Syria, and hear out his likely argument that punitive sanctions against Iran’s nuclear ambitions will do little but consolidate yet another authoritarian Middle Eastern regime. But lengthy argument over these deeply-entrenched issues will prove a red herring and has little chance of changing either side, given that the two countries’ approaches to the region are dictated by fundamentally different domestic political imperatives.

Instead, acknowledging that the Middle East is only one of several areas of overlapping U.S. interests with Turkey, Obama and the U.S. team should focus on two matters that will really test Turkey’s intentions, need urgent attention, and, in the long term, have the most game-changing potential in the region.

You can read the full paper here.

Turkey & Armenia: Don't Hold Your Breath

Over at Eurasianet, Marianna Grigoryan gives a good update on how the recently-signed (though yet-to-be ratified) protocols to renew diplomatic relations between Ankara and Yerevan are progressing in Armenia. The bottom line? Very little progress is being made in getting the protocols even close to being ratified. From her piece:

Armenia’s stormy debate over reconciliation with Turkey has died down in the last two weeks as Armenian politicians circle their wagons, size up their opponents and wait for the Turkish parliament’s own decision on ratification of the October 10 protocols to reestablish diplomatic ties between the two states.

Armenia has not yet taken the first step for ratifying the documents - a review by the country’s Constitutional Court to ensure compliance with constitutional law. A Constitutional Court spokesperson told the PanArmenian.net news service on November 9 that President Serzh Sargsyan has not yet submitted the protocols to the court for review. No reason was given for the delay.

One political scientist cautions that observers should not expect rapid, daily progress on reconciliation with Turkey. "This [current] temporary silence anticipates an intensive [development of] events," Alexander Iskandarian, director of Yerevan’s Caucasus Institute, commented to reporters on November 11.

One opposition member who supports reconciliation with Turkey believes that the prevailing political calm on the issue is linked to parties attempting to consolidate their positions on the documents.

"I don’t think we have silence now," commented Suren Surenyants, a senior member of the Republic Party. "At this stage, each party is trying to reinforce its position before the next stormy cycle, each country is trying to demonstrate its superiority. This is a process that will intensify soon."

Part of that process includes watching Turkey’s own decision on ratification. As in Armenia, Turkish opposition parties have expressed strong misgivings about the reconciliation deal.

"Now everybody in Armenia is waiting for the decision of the Turkish parliament," said Tatul Hakobian, an analyst at the Civilitas Foundation. "This already shows that Armenia has almost no [unilateral] influence on the [future development of] Armenian-Turkish relations. It is waiting for Turkey’s steps."

(You can read the full article here.)

The problem with "everybody in Armenia" waiting for the decision of the Turkish parliament -- which must also first ratify the protocols for them to take effect -- is that it also has made very little progress on the issue. The protocols have yet to be introduced to the parliament in Ankara, and it seems unlikely that the body, which is currently locked in a heated debate over the government's plans to deal with the Kurdish issue, will tackle the Armenia issue any time soon, particularly since there seems to be little movement on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.

The October signing of the protocols in Zurich was certainly a historic event and the Turkish-Armenian reconciliation train has definitely left the station. But it seems that, for the time being, it's stuck on the tracks and making little progress, with domestic politics in both Turkey and Armenia making it difficult for a foreign policy breakthrough to be achieved.

Turkey and Armenia: The Rocky Road Ahead

I have a briefing up on the World Politics Review website looking at the protocols recently signed by Turkey and Armenia to restore diplomatic relations and some of the hurdles these protocols might face in being implemented. From the briefing:

Yesterday's signing of protocols by Turkey and Armenia that pave the way for restoring relations between the two countries was, without a doubt, a historic moment. But it's still too early to break out the champagne.

The protocols -- signed in Zurich in the presence of the American, French and Russian foreign ministers -- spell out in the clearest terms to date what needs to happen in order for diplomatic ties to be restored and for the two countries' borders to be reopened. But significant hurdles, some of which involve actors outside of Turkey and Armenia themselves, still stand in the way of that actually happening.

Ankara and Yerevan broke off relations in 1993, when Turkey closed its border with Armenia. The move followed Armenia's invasion of the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, but the animosity between the two countries goes backs decades further, to what Armenia alleges was the genocide of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Turks during World War I.

Turkey admits that Armenians were killed, but claims in significantly lower numbers, and fiercely rejects suggestions that the killings were genocide. Ankara argues instead that the deaths were a result of a civil uprising, when Armenians joined forces with invading Russians.

The protocols -- signed with the help of Swiss mediation and American and European arm twisting -- call for the renewal of diplomatic ties, opening of the common border and the establishment of a host of intergovernmental sub-commissions. The most significant of the latter will include experts who will take a look at the "historical dimension" of the Turkish-Armenian relationship.

The only catch -- and a potentially deal-breaking one -- is that the protocols will only go into effect once the parliaments in both countries ratify them. And in both Turkey and Armenia, domestic opposition could stand in the way of that happening....

....Still, restoring ties promises to pay significant dividends for both Turkey and Armenia.

For Turkey, restoring relations with Armenia is critical, both for its European Union candidacy and for its regional ambitions. Ankara hopes to play a larger political and diplomatic role in the surrounding region, and to establish itself as an important energy transit route. The closed border with Armenia remains one of the glaring exceptions to Turkey's new foreign policy, which it describes as "zero problems with neighbors." It also leaves Turkey -- and the West -- dependent on volatile Georgia as the main transit route for Caspian oil and gas.

For Armenia, restoring relations with Turkey would end its isolation in the region and could provide the cash-strapped country with new economic opportunities.

The question for both countries, as well as for some of their neighbors in the region, is whether they can find a way to create a new reality in the Caucasus, or if instead they will remain hostages to history and enmity.

(You can read the full briefing here.)

For Turkey and Armenia, a Roadmap's Final Destination Still Unclear

Last week's announcement by Turkey and Armenia that they have agreed on a set of protocols that will lead towards the normalization of their relations and the opening of their borders was certainly welcome news. A previous breakthrough in Turkish-Armenian reconciliation -- last April's vague declaration that the two countries had agreed on a "roadmap" for restoring relations -- quickly fizzled out when Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that there would be no progress on the Armenian front until the "full liberation" of the Azeri territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, occupied by Armenian forces since 1993.

What's different this time around is the release of the detailed protocols, which offer a clear path towards the reopening of the Turkish-Armenian border and renewal of diplomatic ties between Ankara and Yerevan. But has Turkey really changed its position on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue? Will the Turkish parliament, which must ratify the protocols for them to take effect (as does Armenia's), support the move without any concrete action on the Nagorno-Karabakh front? From an analysis piece I have up on the Eurasianet website:

The Nagorno-Karabakh peace process is a complicating factor for the ratification of the protocols. Turkey is Azerbaijan’s strongest ally, and Ankara imposed its economic blockade on Armenia in 1993 to support Baku’s efforts to retain control over Karabakh. Currently, Armenian forces control Karabakh, along with large areas of Azerbaijan proper that surround the enclave.

The timing of the withdrawal of Armenian forces from occupied Azerbaijani lands is one of the primary sticking points in the Karabakh peace process.

The announcement last April of the existence of a "roadmap" to renew ties between Turkey and Armenia led to a strong backlash from Baku, and to what seemed like a stepping back from the deal on Ankara’s part.

During a May 14 address to the Azerbaijani parliament, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared "that the border between Turkey and Armenia will be open only after the full liberation of Azerbaijani occupied territories."

Although the recently released protocols make no mention of a linkage between the normalization of Turkish-Armenian ties and the Karabakh peace process, "there’s no doubt that the Karabakh issue looms over this reconciliation process," says Kiniklioglu.

"If there is no movement on Nagorno-Karabakh, it will be up to the Turkish parliament to assess the situation and judge accordingly."

Observers believe the Turkish government is now counting on international pressure to increase on Armenia and Azerbaijan to reach some kind of agreement regarding the disputed territory. Although the AKP has a majority in parliament, many observers believe that it will be difficult to ratify the protocols without any movement on the Nagorno-Karabakh front.

"Erdogan obviously feels that Turkey wants to see something on Nagorno-Karabakh before they can take it to parliament. The problem is [that the protocols are] in Turkey’s interest, even if nothing happens on Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey’s overwhelming national interest is in putting this Armenian problem behind it," says Hugh Pope, a Turkey analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

Over at Today's Zaman, the Brookings Institute's Omer Taspinar also takes a look at last week's announcement, saying it might be a bit to early to break out a bottle of "nice Caucasian champagne to celebrate." The protocols being ratified by both the Turkish and Armenian parliaments is a big "if," Taspinar says. Reminding readers that this breakthrough in Turkish-Armenian relations started with Turkish president Abdullah Gul going to Armenia for a World Cup qualifying game between the two countries' national teams, Taspinar writes:

The good news is that the so-called “soccer-diplomacy” is alive and well. The not so good news is that we are still at halftime, and the fanatic supporters of the two national teams can cancel the game or disqualify their teams by throwing sharp knifes on the field....

....So, last week's announcement comes just in time to maintain the façade of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. If no sharp knives are thrown onto the field, soccer diplomacy will inch forward. It may still be too early to speak of a genuine rapprochement between Ankara and Yerevan. Yet, no one accuses the two parties of not trying. Negotiations between stubborn neighbors are never easy. But as Winston Churchill wisely said, “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.”

So where is this Turkish-Armenian "roadmap" actually going to lead to? The next few weeks will give a clearer indication of that. One thing is clear: the protocols agreed upon by Ankara and Yerevan might not refer to Nagorno-Karabakh, but the "roadmap" for Turkish-Armenian reconciliation leads straight through the heart of that disputed territory.

A Roadmap for Turkey and Armenia, but Hazards Ahead

I have an article up on the Eurasianet website looking at some of the challenges facing Turkey and Armenia in their bid to restore diplomatic relations and reopen their border. From the article:

Turkey and Armenia have announced they are close to reaching an agreement to restore ties and reopen their borders. But observers caution that getting to a final deal will require both Turkey and Armenia to navigate through difficult domestic and external challenges.

"There’s no going back now, that’s for sure. Everybody wants to solve this problem now. Both countries are very committed and being very careful," said Noyan Soyak, the Istanbul-based vice-chairman of the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council, referring to the April 22 joint announcement that Ankara and Yerevan had agreed on a "road map" to normalize relations.

"Now it’s a question of timing and the implementation and how it’s going to be presented to the public. That’s very important," Soyak added….

….Sorting out the differences between Turkey and Armenia might be the easy part, experts say. It’s the other actors involved in the issue that may prove to be difficult, says Semih Idiz, a foreign affairs columnist with Milliyet, a Turkish daily. "There are more factors that are lining up to spoil this than to bolster this. These factors have to play themselves out in the coming weeks and months and we’ll see where we go," said Idiz.

One significant hurdle to the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement is Azerbaijan, which insists that the Nagorno-Karabakh problem must be resolved before Ankara restores its ties with Yerevan. The Azeris have reacted angrily to the April 22 announcement, signaling that if Turkey proceeds unilaterally, then Baku may respond by strengthening ties with Moscow. The clear implication is that Azerbaijan may be willing to reorient its energy focus, and make Russia, not Turkey its main energy-export option.

"I don’t think Turkey expected the strong Azeri reaction. At the moment there is anger on both sides," Idiz says. "Turkey is not going to lose Azerbaijan -- there are pipelines and trade that connect the countries, whether they like it or not -- but it will cool relations for a while."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials have tried to placate Baku by saying no final deal with be signed with Armenia until there is an agreement on Karabakh. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in slow moving negotiations over the territory’s fate as part of the Minsk Group process, which is overseen by the United States, Russia and France.

Hugh Pope, a Turkey analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, says linking the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border with the fate of the Karabakh issue is a mistake. "Ankara would be ill-advised to hold up rapprochement with Yerevan because of protests from its ally, Azerbaijan," Pope said. "In fact, normalizing relations with Armenia is the best way for Turkey to help its ethnic and linguistic Azerbaijani cousins. It would make Armenia feel more secure, making it perhaps also more open to a compromise over Nagorno-Karabakh."

"The way the Azeris are dealing with it now is that they are telling their people that they didn’t lose the war and they are talking about military reconquest and that’s completely unrealistic," Pope continued. "Turkey obviously has a lot of work to do to convince the Azeris that their current concept is not working and that your only way to get their land back is through the Minsk Group process."

Turkish and Armenian leaders, meanwhile, are also facing rising domestic anger about the possibility of a deal. In Armenia, the hard-line nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation Party on April 27 quit the country’s governing coalition. In Turkey, the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) have criticized the government for its overtures to Armenia, claiming it has sold out Azerbaijan.

"This demonstrates the fragility of the agreement, in that neither Turkey, nor Armenia nor Azerbaijan has done anything to prepare their societies or shape public opinion to prepare for an agreement," said Richard Giragosian, director of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, a Yerevan-based think tank.

"The same can be said for Nagorno-Karabakh, where neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan has done anything to prepare society for an agreement," Giragosian added. "I would also stress that right now we are only talking about normalization. Normalization infers open borders and even historical commissions. But the second step is reconciliation and for that to happen we need civil society and public opinion involved, especially for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, because that means dealing with the genocide issue."

"If the public isn’t on board, we can’t sustain normalization or transform it into a deeper reconciliation," Giragosian emphasized.

April 24

April 24 commemorates the Armenian genocide of 1915-1918. The tragedy of the event itself has become subsumed and obscured by the politics surrounding the issue. It seems like every year more attention is paid to the “will he, or won’t he?” guessing game of whether the American president will utter the word “genocide” in his annual commemoration of the event, than is actually given to remembering what happened.

There is another opportunity missed on April 24, and that is the chance for Turkey to take stock of its policy on the genocide issue is. Ankara spends an enormous amount of political capital (and cold hard cash for lobbyists) in fighting the genocide claim, particularly in the United States, on what I believe is ultimately a self-defeating battle. A good example would be Turkey’s relations with Canada, which have not fully recovered from a breach that occurred in 2006, after Canadian PM Stephen Harper referred to the events of 1915 as a “genocide” and Turkey briefly recalled its ambassador to Ottawa in protest. This past week, Turkey again recalled its ambassador after Canadian officials reportedly attended a genocide commemoration event.

My own modest theory regarding international affairs is that whenever a country has a problem with Canada, it’s time for that country to take a good look at its own policies to see where they might be coming up short. Having a diplomatic spat with Canada is, at the end of the day, really more about you than Canada.

Needless to say, there are much bigger and more critical issues that require Ankara’s attention than the annual fight to extinguish the Armenian genocide flame in Washington (and other capitals). Imagine if the money and effort spent on lobbying on the issue in Washington was put into action in Brussels and other European capitals on behalf of Turkey’s EU bid? That said, there is something different this year, and that is because of yesterday’s joint announcement by Turkey and Armenia that they have worked out a “roadmap” for restoring their severed relations. If the two countries succeed to move along the road they are mapping, this could very well lead to a new Turkish approach regarding the genocide issue.

The details of the “roadmap” are still vague, but what is clear is that, for now, the Turkish-Armenian announcement had less to do with repairing the two countries’ relations and more to do with protecting Turkish-American relations. During his recent visit to Turkey, president Barack Obama signaled that he would back away from his campaign promise to refer to the 1915 events as a “genocide” because of fears that doing so might harm the progress being made in the talks between Turkey and Armenia. Making the American president look like a chump by failing to come up with something concrete before April 24 would not have been the best way to start the new “golden age” in Turkish-American relations that some in Ankara have been predicting.

Reaching a compromise solution with Armenia on how to deal with the genocide issue will only be part of the battle for Turkey. What may be even harder for the country is to get the Turkish public to reach some kind of new understanding about what happened in the early part of the 20th century. After decades of an official line that said there was no genocide and that it was the Armenians who were the aggressors, the genocide and its denial have become a touchstone of Turkish nationalism, an important element in a national narrative that blames external forces for trying to undermine Turkey, sometimes using the country’s minorities to achieve that goal. Some progress has been made in creating a more open environment in Turkey for discussing the genocide question (although there are severe limits to that, as the murder of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink showed) and the subject is not the taboo that it once was, but it still remains a potentially explosive issue.

Opening borders is going to be one thing. Opening minds will be something else entirely.

More on the possible Turkish-Armenian Thaw

The International Crisis Group has a new report out about Turkey and Armenia and the possibility of their renewing diplomatic relations. From the report's executive summary:

Turkey and Armenia are close to settling a dispute that has long roiled Caucasus politics, isolated Armenia and cast a shadow over Turkey’s European Union (EU) ambition. For a decade and a half, relations have been poisoned by disagreement about issues including how to address a common past and compensate for crimes, territorial disputes, distrust bred in Soviet times and Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani land. But recently, progressively intense official engagement, civil society interaction and public opinion change have transformed the relationship, bringing both sides to the brink of an historic agreement to open borders, establish diplomatic ties and begin joint work on reconciliation. They should seize this opportunity to no rmalise. The politicised debate whether to recognise as genocide the destruction of much of the Ottoman Armenian population and the stalemated Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh should not halt momentum. The U.S., EU, Russia and others should maintain support for reconciliation and avoid harming it with statements about history at a critical and promising time.

Turks’ and Armenians’ once uncompromising, bipolar views of history are significantly converging, showing that the deep traumas can be healed. Most importantly, the advance in bilateral relations demonstrates that a desire for reconciliation can overcome old enmities and closed borders. Given the heritage and culture shared by Armenians and Turks, there is every reason to hope that normalisation of relations between the two countries can be achieved and sustained.

You can download the full report here.

The Turkish-Armenian Thaw: Implications for the South Caucasus

The Caucasian Review of International Affairs, on online journal, has a good rundown of all the developments on the Turkish-Armenian front (or should we say the Turkish-Armenian-Azeri-Russian-American front). As the piece makes clear, there are several players in the chess game being played out right now in the South Caucasus. 

From the CRIA's article:

Turkey’s recent and ongoing rapprochement with Armenia, addressed in last week’s Caucasus Update from the Turkish angle, has implications that could reverberate throughout the South Caucasus and beyond. Arguably, the normalisation of ties between Armenia and Turkey would be an event of equivalent regional significance as the Russo-Georgian war of last August.

Details remain unclear. This diplomatic murkiness testifies to just how explosive the issue has become for the Turkish, Azerbaijani and Armenian governments. The outlines, however, are apparent – that Turkey and Armenia are expected to begin opening their mutual border and establishing diplomatic relations probably sooner than later. The Turkish overtures are contingent on two things: firstly, that US President Barack Obama does not openly acknowledge the Armenian ‘genocide’, and secondly (and much less publicly) that Armenia renounces or at least quietly suspends its own push for genocide recognition and its long-dormant claims to Turkey’s eastern provinces as part of its “Greater Armenia” concept.

A third condition – that any formal moves are also conditional on Armenian progress towards removing its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh and the territories around it – is unconfirmed. The very idea that Turkey would go through with the border talks without attaching any conditions on Karabakh has provoked fury in Azerbaijan, especially since Turkey sealed the border in 1993 in response to the Armenian occupation of the regions, a reality which has clearly not changed. In Baku, the issue has created a rare patch of common ground for the government and the opposition (APA, April 7).

Essentially, what has developed appears to be an enormous three-way game. Firstly, Turkey’s determination to go ahead with the thaw – including the establishment of an alleged framework for talks in the areas of border openings, diplomatic representations, and dispute commissions (Wall Street Journal, April 2) – has been curbed by its recognition of the obvious, and urgent, need to keep their ethnic and linguistic brethren in Azerbaijan on side. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on April 7 that "The Azerbaijani-Armenian dispute should be resolved first. Then, problems between Turkey and Armenia can be solved, too”. According to Today’s Zaman, Turkey’s bluff may be to limit the thaw to occasional border openings and limited diplomatic contact until October, when a World Cup qualifying match between Armenia and Turkey (the return leg of the fixture which began the whole process last September with Turkish President’s visit to Yerevan) is due to take place in Istanbul (Today’s Zaman, April 9). This would give Ankara time to push Azerbaijan and Armenia into a compromise over Karabakh, probably under the auspices of Turkey’s much-discussed Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform.

You can read the rest of the article here. Also, Hurriyet's English-language edition has an interview with Turkish culture minister Ertugrul Gunay and his ideas for how Turkey and Armenia can cooperate in the cultural sphere.

(Photo: An out of commission Armenian artillery piece on the border with Turkey. By Yigal Schleifer)

The Miseducation of Turkey's Minority Children

A new report issued by the London-based Minority Rights Group International takes a look at the educational challenges faced by minority children in Turkey.

From a Reuters article about the report:

Nurcan Kaya, author of the report by Minority Rights Group International, said a failure to provide equal access to education for children from non-Turkish backgrounds could hamper the country's bid to join the European Union, which has called on Turkey to expand cultural rights for its ethnic minorities.

"The discrepancy between EU standards on education for minorities and those in Turkey will ultimately affect Turkey's efforts to join the EU," Kaya said at a news conference.

"The EU should give this issue greater priority during Turkey's accession process," she said.

Turkey only recognises Greeks, Armenians and Jews as minorities under a treaty that ended World War One and doesn't afford special rights to other ethnic or religious groups, including Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of the population, Roma, Syriac Christians, Alevi Muslims and others....

....Officially recognised minorities operate their own schools and are able to teach some classes in Greek or Armenian, but are given as little as $1 per student annually in financial assistance from the government, said Garo Paylan of the Armenian Foundation Schools at the news conference.

Minority schools are unable to find properly trained teachers and updated textbooks, he said. A Turkish assistant principal employed by the Education Ministry is the main authority at the schools.

Religious education that teaches the Sunni Hanafi creed of Islam remains mandatory in state schools and non-adherents can only opt out of classes if they disclose their faith, which violates Turkey's secular constitution, the report said.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that religion classes in Turkey's state schools violate pluralism in a case brought by an Alevi father.

The full report can be found here.

[UPDATE -- In a column in Today's Zaman, Andrew Finkel points out the report's "unflattering" conclusion: "Although the education system could be used as an effective tool to promote tolerance, multiculturalism and peace, it is deepening fears and hatred in its current state."]

On a related note, the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), recently released a report looking at the legal and bureaucratic hurdles faced by non-Muslim minority foundations in Turkey. Today's Zaman writes about it here. For some more background on the issue, take a look at piece I wrote a few years back for JTA.

Turkey's Ministry of (re)Education

Following an outcry, the Turkish Ministry of Education has put a halt to the distribution of a documentary which purports to tell the “true story” of the Armenian issue – that being that it was Armenians who slaughtered Turks in the early part of the 20th century, and not the other way around. The documentary, “Sarı Gelin -- The True Face of the Armenian Question,” was sent around to primary schools all over Turkey, and shown to students with the intention that it be used as an “educational” tool. “Sarı Gelin,” or the “Blonde Bride” in Turkish, is the title of a famous Anatolian folk song of Armenian origin.

From Hurriyet:

The documentary was criticized by academics for reflecting the official ideology of the Turkish Republic about the incidents of 1915 and undermining the claims of an alleged Armenian "genocide". The documentary mentioned the 1915 incidents. It is mostly criticized as unscientific and weak in its claims because it exaggerated the deaths of Turks while undermining Armenian deaths in an attempt to dismiss Armenians claims of "genocide". 



"The students were forced to watch that documentary, which indeed had no scientific background. That would only increase hatred and discrimination against the Armenians," the History Foundation of Turkey said in a written statement on Tuesday. 



Also, 500 Armenians and intellectuals have sent an open letter to the prime minister protesting this incident, daily Radikal reported yesterday. The letter asked the prime minister to exempt at least Armenian schools and Armenian students who attended the same classes with Turkish students from watching the documentary in order to "prevent them feeling guilty, ashamed and excluded from the others."


According to a report in Taraf (in Turkish), the decision to distribute the film was actually made by Turkey’s National Security Council, which has a committee that works on countering “false genocide claims.” Following a 2007 decision by the committee to distribute the film, Turkey’s General Staff bought 56,388 copies of the film – which show images of Armenian gangs attacking Turkish villages and of piles of corpses that are supposed to belong to Turks murdered by Armenians – which were then given to the Ministry of Education and sent around to school districts across the country. (An English-language version of the film can be watched online here – unless, of course, you are in Turkey, since the government’s ban on YouTube means the video is not accessible.)

This is the second time in recent months that the Turkish Ministry of Education has been involved in a pedagogical controversy. In January, during Israel’s attack Gaza, the ministry issued a directive for all students to observe a minute of silence for the Palestinians killed in the offensive. "This show of respect damns not only the cruelty in the Palestine, but also shows solidarity with the Palestinian people," the directive said.

Critics called the directive manipulative and an injection of politics into the educational system. “How can we describe such an action other than condemning it as a gross violation of [the] rights of children and [the] exploitation of them for some political reasons?” wrote Yusuf Kanli, a columnist with Hurriyet’s English-language edition.

The Armenian Issue: Ready on Day One

President Barack Obama has come into office with the promise of a new era in American politics. While the rest of the world is celebrating that promise, in Turkey – as Today’s Zaman puts it in an article that ran on inauguration day – Obama’s pledge is cause for “both expectations and fears” (with “fears” coming first).

What we are talking about, of course, is the Armenian genocide issue. As the paper explains: “Turkey's most obvious fear is about recognition of the Armenian claims of genocide by the administration. Obama already pledged during his election campaign that if elected he would recognize the Armenian claims.”

“Obama's choices of Joe Biden as vice president and Hilary Clinton as secretary of state have made it clear to Ankara that the US will never be as friendly as it has been in the past when it comes to speaking about the Armenian claims.”

The issue certainly has the potential to dominate – if not possibly damage – Turkish-American relations, as we saw in 2007, when Congress came very close to passing a resolution recognizing the genocide and Turkish-U.S. relations went through a period of high tension.

Obama will likely have to deal with the problem very soon. Not far away is April 24, the date on which Armenians commemorate the genocide, and on which American presidents have to find a way of acknowledging what happened in 1915 without calling it a "genocide" (and angering Ankara). Meanwhile, with Congress now controlled by people more receptive to the Armenian cause, the possibility of a genocide resolution finally passing is greater than ever.

For a more in-depth look at how the issue is playing out in Turkey, read Meline Toumani’s piece in Global Post, a newly launched international affairs news site. For the view from Washington, read this column by the Brookings Institution’s Omer Taspinar, which warns of “the coming storm” over the genocide issue.

UPDATE -- In a new column, Taspinar says Ankara and Washington might be heading towards a collision on the Armenian issue even earlier than April 24, with supporters of a genocide resolution hoping to bring it to a vote in Congress as soon as possible. 

"Is there a way out of this ordeal? The short answer is 'not likely,'" Taspinar writes. "As things stand right now, we may very well be heading towards disaster in Turkish-American relations even before April 24.

A Turkish Mea Culpa?

A group of Turkish academics and intellectuals have launched an online campaign that allows Turks to sign on to an apology for the "great catastrophe" that the Armenians suffered during World War I. The apology, now signed by more than 15,000, studiously avoids the "G" word, but it is being seen as another important step in making the Armenian issue less of a taboo in Turkey.

The tight social, political and legal limits that control the discussion of the Armenian issue in Turkey have slowly been expanding over the last few years, although frequently it has felt like a one step forward, two steps back kind of dynamic. This was painfully evident in the case of murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, whose insistent efforts to normalize the issue earned him three bullets in the back of his head.

The Armenian issue also seems to have a way of exposing an intolerant streak in Turkish society. A group of retired ambassadors, who are issuing their own counter-petition, have called the signers of the apology campaign "traitors." Canan Aritman, a member of parliament with the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP), has upped the ante: after Turkish president Abdullah Gul refused to criticize the online apology, saying the signers had a right to post it, Aritman accused the president of being -- heaven forbid -- an "Armenian." "Investigate the ethnic origin of the president's mother and you will see," she said.

Gul quickly responded, saying all Turkish citizens are equal, no matter what their background. Just to be safe, though, he also added that both his mother and father come from families that have been Muslim and Turkish for "centuries." Good to know. (UPDATE -- Gul is now suing Aritman, for the symbolic sum of 1 lira, claiming a "heavy assault" on his "personal and family values, honor and reputation.") 

There have been calls for the CHP to censure Aritman. So far, the party has not done that. The MP, meanwhile, remains unapologetic. "If I had seen [Gul], I would have thrown a shoe at him," she was quoted as saying after her initial remarks were criticized. 

As an antidote to Aritman's mind-numbing blather, read Sahin Alpay's thoughtful piece in Today's Zaman about why he decided to sign the online apology.