Armenian News-NEWS.am presents below an abridged version of Turkish analyst Orhan Kemal Cengiz’s article published in Today’s Zaman daily of Turkey.
“Upon putting some pieces together, we can get a picture of the likely strategy that will be used and steps that will be taken by Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government for 2015, which marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.
“Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu visited Switzerland in October and during his visit he spoke to Swiss authorities about Turkey's sensitivities regarding a statue Armenians want to erect in Geneva. We can understand from this ‘sensitivity’ that the Foreign Ministry's official position on 1915 has not changed even an inch.
“We should also take note of what Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, spokesperson for the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), said about 2015: ‘It is the 100th year of both the Dardanelles and the claims of an Armenian genocide. We are working seriously. There is work being done via symposiums, conferences, panels, publications and documentaries. But we are also engaged in very special public diplomacy activities that could affect the entire world.’
“His statement also shows that the government is quite determined to repeat well-known clichés of official state policies on this matter.
“You know our political parties cannot come together to reach an agreement on anything, but it appears that, except for the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), they all were in agreement on the necessity to do something for 2015.
“The Turkish History Institution (Türk Tarih Kurumu) is also making preparations for 2015. The president of the institution said they are working on a complete text of Turkey-Armenian relations in preparation for 2015.
“In addition to all of this, you can clearly see in Erdoğan's discourse that not only was the possibility of reconciliation altogether excluded, but non-Muslims were excluded from his discourse as well. He frequently describes Turkey as a mosaic made of diverse ethnic identities. You can often hear him mentioning Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Circassians and the Laz. But when describing this mosaic, Erdoğan never mentions Turkey's non-Muslims, including the Armenians, Greeks, Jews and Syriacs.
“When we put together all these pieces of preparation and discourse from the government and Erdoğan, we can predict that Turkey's defensive approach of denying the Armenian genocide is not going to change in 2015.
“Unless the government takes unlikely, unprecedented and bolder steps on the Armenian question in an attempt to repair its harmed image in the international arena, it would not be wise to expect dramatic changes in the official stance of Turkey with regard to 1915.”
