Turkey and its past

March 29, 2007
Washington Times
By DAVID BOYAJIAN

Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul is worried that the House of Representatives will pass an Armenian genocide resolution ("“Politicizing the Armenian Tragedy”, Op-Ed, March 28). He's a bit late.

You see, the House already has passed three resolutions (in 1975, 1984 and 1996) that explicitly reaffirmed America's long-standing recognition of the Armenian genocide.

President Reagan's official proclamation of April 22, 1981, also affirmed the factuality of that genocide.

Turkey took no action against the United States on those occasions and cannot do so when the current resolution passes, as Turkey is infinitely more dependent on America than America is on Turkey.

That it would threaten the United States with retaliation over a mere resolution disproves Turkey's contention that it is a loyal ally.

Finally, Mr. Gul's call for a "joint commission" to study the 1915 Armenian massacres is disingenuous, to say the least. He knows very well that such a joint study was undertaken by the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission and released in 2003. Its conclusion: Turkey committed genocide.

Turkey is in denial and must confront its demons.

DAVID BOYAJIAN
Newton, Mass.


Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.