By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
The High Advisory Board of the Turkish Presidency met last Tuesday for five hours to discuss how to respond “to groundless and anti-Turkey allegations” regarding the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The Advisory Board includes President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ismail Kahraman (former Chairman of Parliament), Bulent Arinch (former Deputy Prime Minister), Cemil Chichek (former Chairman of Parliament), Koksal Toptan (former Chairman of Parliament), Mehmet Ali Shahin (former Chairman of Parliament), Yildirim Akbulut (former Prime Minister), President’s Chief of Staff Metin Kiratli and Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun.
It is very satisfactory to Armenians worldwide that the Turkish government, after lying about the occurrence of the Armenian Genocide for a century, going to extraordinary lengths to blackmail other countries economically and politically, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on hiring lobbying firms and publishing denialist propaganda, is spending long hours wondering how to counter “the Armenian lobby.”
This means that all of the Turkish efforts for 105 years to deny the Armenian Genocide have been in vain. Turkey has wasted a huge amount of resources and time to deny the undeniable! The Turkish government is welcome to try again to convince the world that no such genocide has taken place. Eventually, the Turkish leaders will give up seeing that they cannot persuade anyone to believe their lies. The day will come when the Turkish government will admit that it is much easier to tell the truth than to continue its useless strategy of distorting a well-established historical fact. It is in Turkey’s best interest to come to terms with the Armenian government and its Diaspora and negotiate a proper compensation and restitution for the damages caused to the Armenian people during the Genocide. Once Turkey acknowledges the historical facts and makes amends, it will no longer have to worry about the world’s reaction to the Armenian Genocide. On the contrary, the Turkish leader will receive accolades from the international community for facing the facts and dealing honestly with its past crimes.
In the meantime, the Turkish government is foolishly continuing its hopeless campaign of denial of the Armenian Genocide. After last week’s five-hour High Advisory Board meeting behind closed doors, President Erdogan’s Communications Director Fahrettin Altun relayed the President’s following statement: “hostility seeds that were tried to be sown through distorted historical events would not be able to find the opportunity to flourish in the land of truth.” He accused the “Armenian lobby” of exploiting the “challenging and painful era endured by all Ottoman citizens for the sake of political calculations through lies and slanders that were invented by various power groups.” Furthermore, he said that during the meeting, “comprehensive steps” were discussed to prevent the Armenian lobby from using the 1915 events to “defame Turkey and our nation and also the propaganda made by countries through unrealistic allegations that manipulate the issue with political calculations.” The Turkish Presidential meeting also deliberated on projects and activities set to “shed light” on the issues with historical and legal aspects, along with “facts for the national and international public,” he added.
This new Turkish Genocide denial plan may have been triggered by the resolutions acknowledging the Armenian Genocide by the U.S. House of Representatives (405-11 votes) and the unanimous vote of the U.S. Senate last fall.
The question is why would Turkey’s leaders spent five hours deliberating on genocide denial at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is raging in the country, its economy is in shambles, the Turkish Lira has collapsed and...
