{"id":191,"date":"2015-01-24T06:55:47","date_gmt":"2015-01-24T06:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/?p=191"},"modified":"2015-01-27T07:02:45","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T07:02:45","slug":"turkeys-attempt-to-distract-from-armenian-centennial-commemorations-falls-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/?p=191","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s attempt to distract from Armenian centennial commemorations falls short"},"content":{"rendered":"

DEN\u0130Z ARSLAN \/ ANKARA
\nToday’s Zaman<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Turkish government’s move this year to invite more than 100 leaders around the world for the centennial commemorations of the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I to be held on the same day as the Armenians’ centennial commemoration of what they call the \u201cArmenian genocide\u201d has been perceived as a crude attempt to distract attention from the Armenian commemorations.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to reduce the impact of the centennial commemoration ceremonies of the Armenian \u201cgenocide\u201d this year on April 24 in Armenia, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has come up with the idea of celebrating the 100th anniversary of World War I’s Gallipoli Campaign on two-day-long ceremonies on April 23-24.<\/p>\n

Turkey traditionally commemorates its fallen soldiers in the Battle of Gallipoli — also known as \u00c7anakkale on March 18 every year. But just two years ago, then-president-Abdullah G\u00fcl marked the 98th anniversary of the \u00c7anakkale Battle on March 18 in 2013.<\/p>\n

No one in Turkey at the time suggested that the \u00c7anakkale Battle should be remembered on April 24. March 18 is the day the British started its bombardment of the Dardanelles peninsula.<\/p>\n

The Gallipoli commemorations will take place on April 23-24 this year for the first time and the Turkish government has sent invitations to more than 100 leaders around the world, whose soldiers fought in World War I, including Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan.<\/p>\n

Foreign Minister Mevl\u00fct \u00c7avu\u015fo\u011flu had to explain last week that other ethnic groups, including Arabs and Armenians also fought at Gallipoli. \u201cWe [Turks and Armenians] fought together at Gallipoli. That’s why we have extended the invitation to President Sarksyan as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Agos daily after President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan’s invitation to Sarksyan, many Turkish citizens of Armenian descent reacted strongly to Erdo\u011fan’s invitation to Sarksyan, calling it a \u201cjoke\u201d and an \u201cill-mannered\u201d act, and further criticizing it as a \u201cpolitical maneuver.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an open letter addressed to President Erdo\u011fan, Sarksyan immediately rejected the invitation to the Gallipoli commemoration ceremonies, adding that the invitation itself shows that Turkey continues to pursue its \u201cdenial policy\u201d of the Armenian \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC), an independent think tank in Yerevan, said the timing of the Gallipoli invitation could not have been worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, in what seems to be a rather selective reinterpretation of history, the Turkish government has set the two-day Gallipoli commemoration for April 23-24, in a blatant disregard for the traditional April 24 commemoration of the Armenian genocide,\u201d said Giragosian in an email reply to Today’s Zaman.<\/p>\n

Giragosian stated that Erdo\u011fan’s move only triggered an intense negative reaction in Armenia and tended to confirm the perception of Turkey as an \u201cinsincere and unreliable interlocutor,\u201d as the timing of the Turkish state commemoration of Gallipoli is viewed as \u201ca crude attempt to distract from and deny the Armenian genocide commemoration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Armenia is preparing a wide-scale anniversary ceremony for the 1915 events on April 24 and invited a number of leaders around the world. French President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande and US President Barack Obama are among those invited to Yerevan for the ceremonies in Armenia.<\/p>\n

Yerevan commemorates the mass killings of Armenians every April 24 and often use the anniversary as an opportunity to lobby Western countries to brand the killings as genocide. Ankara denies claims that the events of 1915 amounted to genocide, arguing that both Turks and Armenians were killed when Armenians revolted against the Ottoman Empire during World War I in collaboration with the Russian army, which was then invading Eastern Anatolia.<\/p>\n

Giragosian pointed out that there are concerns over recent developments in Turkish politics. \u201cFor one, the rapid rise of President Erdo\u011fan as the most powerful, but most polarizing politician is a cause for worry. And given his rather unpredictable and inflexible personal posture on many issues, there is concern that he will have and hold too much personal and political power, without due deference to the rule of law or democratic institutions within Turkey,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, the future of both Turkey’s broader regional policy and its more specific policy towards Armenian-Turkish normalization are ever more hostage to the outcome of domestic Turkish politics,\u201d Giragosian added.<\/p>\n

Erdo\u011fan’s invitation could be interpreted as an olive branch to Armenia, with which Turkey has no diplomatic relations. But Sarksyan in his letter to Erdo\u011fan last week indicated his doubts about the sincerity of the invitation and expressed his expectation that Turkey will reply first to Armenia as to whether it will attend the ceremonies to commemorate the Armenian \u201cgenocide\u201d in Yerevan.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor his part, the Armenian president had little choice but to reject the invitation,\u201d said Giragosian.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Turkish government pulled another trick from its bag, only one day before April 24 to reduce the impact of the April 24 commemorations by Armenia. In a historic first for the Turkish Republic last year, Erdo\u011fan, who was prime minister at the time, extended Turkey’s condolences to the grandchildren of Armenians who had lost their lives in 1915.<\/p>\n

The statement, which doesn’t include the word \u201cgenocide,\u201d was welcomed by the West and Armenians living in Turkey, but was short of satisfying Yerevan.<\/p>\n

Another \u201colive branch\u201d to Armenians came this week from Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto\u011flu. The prime minister released a statement on Tuesday to commemorate slain Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink eight years ago and called for a new beginning in Turkish-Armenian relations.<\/p>\n

He stated that a relocation policy and the events of 1915 took place under the harsh conditions of World War l, and Turkey shares the pain of Armenians.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur desire to share pain, heal wounds and re-establish friendships are sincere. Our prospect is friendship and peace,\u201d Davuto\u011flu said.<\/p>\n

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgi\u00e7 also denied on Wednesday that Erdo\u011fan’s message for Armenians last year and Davuto\u011flu’s statement addressed to Armenians are \u201ctactical\u201d steps to reduce the effects of centennial commemorative events of 1915.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a press conference on Jan. 21, Bilgi\u00e7 said that both statements by Erdo\u011fan and Davuto\u011flu are \u201csincere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nalbandian: ‘It’s inappropriate’<\/h3>\n

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, who was visiting Brussels to attend the Armenia-EU Cooperation Council on Jan. 20, told journalists that it’s not appropriate to organize the Gallipoli commemoration events in Turkey on April 24.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think it is appropriate to organize such an event in Turkey on April 24 and I couldn’t believe that anybody could perceive this as a proper step,\u201d said Nalbandian.<\/p>\n

He also recalled that the Armenian president had invited Erdo\u011fan to participate in the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian \u201cgenocide\u201d in April 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cI conveyed the written invitation to President Erdo\u011fan being in Ankara in August of last year,\u201d said Nalbandian.
\nHe had attended President Erdo\u011fan’s inauguration ceremony in Ankara in late August. \u201cTill now we haven’t received any response,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The chief spokesman for the Armenian Foreign Ministry, Tigran Mkrtchyan, posted a tweet on Jan. 20, after Davuto\u011flu’s call for a new beginning with Armenia saying, \u201cHow can we speak of a \u2018new beginning’ if the starting point is an aggressive denial of the Armenian genocide — a double crime!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mkrtchyan also accused Erdo\u011fan of \u201cseeking to keep foreign leaders away from the Armenian commemorations by creating an impromptu — and historically inaccurate — anniversary of his own, \u201c according to an article by Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty on Jan. 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DEN\u0130Z ARSLAN \/ ANKARA Today’s Zaman The Turkish government’s move this year to invite more than 100 leaders around the world for the centennial commemorations of the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I to be held on the same day as the Armenians’ centennial commemoration of what they call the \u201cArmenian genocide\u201d has been perceived…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}